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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP 



THE PRAYER OF CHILDHOOD 



IN 



LITERATURE AND SONG 



BY 

WM. OLAND BOURNE 



NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION 



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NEW YORK 
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY (Inc.) 

182 FIFTH AVENUE 




v- 






Copyright, 1881, by 
Anson D. F. Randolph & Company. 



Copyright, 1894, by 

Anson D. F. Randolph & Company 
(incorporated). 



PRESS OF 

EDWARD O. JENKINS' SON, 

NEW YORK. 



TO 

THE UNKNOWN AUTHOR 

OF THE 

PRAYER OF CHILDHOOD. 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP, 

I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 

IF I SHOULD DIE BEFORE I WAKE, 

I pray the Lord my soul to take. 



A million tongues have lisped the holy strain, 
Uncounted voices breathed the sacred psalm ; 
And low sweet whispers o'er the bed of pain 
Have made the patriarch a child again, 
To pass from Earth to Heaven's eternal calm. 



Tell ye your children of it, 

AND 

Let your children tell their children, 

AND 

Their children another generation. 
Joel i. 3. 

W. O. B. 



PREFACE. 

FLOATING on the sea of newspaper literature, like the 
little mariner that spreads his sail to the breeze, in the 
sunlight, and then folds it up and drops out of sight, to re- 
appear in another clime, and to other eyes, there comes to 
the hands of the compiler, the following tribute to the au- 
thor of the "Universal Prayer'' of Childhood. It is as 
graceful as it is true, and every reader will respond to the 
sentiment, that 

"The man who wrote the four simple lines, beginning 
with 'Now I lay me down to sleep,' seemed to do a very little 
thing. He wrote four lines for his little child. His name 
has not come down to us ; but he has done more for the 
good of his race than if he had commanded the victorious 
army at Waterloo. The little fires which the good man 
kindles here and there on the shores never go out, but ever 
and anon they flame up and throw light on the pilgrim's 
path." — Rev. Dr. Dodd. 

For many years, among other gleanings from the current 
literature of the press, the compiler has preserved poems 
and incidents relating to the sweet and simple prayer of 



Vi PREFACE. 

infancy, and they are collected in these pages, believing that 
they will be of interest to readers of every age. 

Subsequent to the publication of the first editions in an- 
other form, a number of contributions have been received 
from various sources, and those deemed most appropriate 
and worthy of preservation are collected in the present 
volume. 

The compiler takes great pleasure in acknowledging the 
labors of Rev. H. Harbaugh, D.D., editor of The Guard- 
ian y a monthly magazine, published for years at Chambers- 
burg, Pa., who gave special attention to the Children's 
Prayer, and presented the results of his own work, and that 
of his correspondents, in successive issues of that periodical. 
In the introductory to the series (August, 1863), he states 
the origin of the effort, as follows : 

" Several years ago, while on a summer vacation tour, we 
had the pleasure of spending a delightful day with a com- 
pany of literary and intelligent Christian friends, at a lovely 
rural country seat some miles out from one of our principal 
cities. Seated in a group, under the shade of a venerable 
elm in the lawn, the matter of hymns, their authors, and in- 
cidents connected with them, came up in the conversation. 
Each one contributed to the general fund of interesting 
information, which enlivened the occasion and made it mu- 
tually instructive. 

" Suddenly, but very naturally, the conversation turned to 



PREFACE, vii 

the little prayer, i Now I lay me down to sleep. 1 A num- 
ber of pleasant memories connected with it were called up, 
and many interesting incidents to which it had given rise 
were related. At length it was suggested that it would be a 
good idea to write the history of this little prayer, embody- 
ing an account of the many witnesses in which lasting im- 
pressions for good had been made by it, and publish it as a 
Sunday-school book. 

" i Good ! good ! ' was the response, which came with true 
heartiness from the whole company. ' Let it be done ! ' " 

Dr. Harbaugh was selected as the chairman of "the 
committee/' but events proved that the work fell very nat- 
urally into his own hands, and The Guardian, at intervals 
for several successive years, became the repository of the 
poems, incidents, and tributes collected by the editor. These 
have been freely drawn upon in the preparation of this vol- 
ume. Dr. Harbaugh was a minister of the German Re- 
formed Church, and was called to a Professor's chair in the 
Mercersburgh Theological Seminary (now at Lancaster, Pa.), 
which he occupied several years, when he laid down to sleep 
in the hope of a blessed immortality, December 28, 1867, at 
the early age of fifty-three. Among his published works are 
a volume of poems in English, and one in Pennsylvania 
German. 

The compiler acknowledges also the extremely kind atten- 
tion and interest shown in this work by Rev. Matthias 



viii PREFACE. 

Sheeleigh, of Fort Washington, Pa., editor of the Sunday 
School Herald, and pastor of the Lutheran church at White- 
marsh, who has furnished valuable information relating to 
the authorship of some of the articles, as well as their origin. 
His own poetical contributions will be studied with interest, 
as ingenious and appropriate elaborations of the text of the 
prayer. 

Acknowledgments are also made to Oliver Ditson & 
Co., of Boston ; Biglow & Main, W. A. Pond & Co., and 
Leslie's Sunday Magazine, of New York ; J. W. Smith, Jr., 
& Bro., and George Henry Curtis, Esq., Brooklyn ; and 
J. M. Stoddart & Co., Philadelphia, for the generous con- 
tributions of their respective songs and hymns. 

Musical readers will be interested in the three different 
versions and compositions of " The Unfinished Prayer," the 
melodies alone of which are given to illustrate the text. 

Many of the incidents have been contributed to this vol- 
ume, and are now first presented to the public. 

In the belief that this harvesting of the golden grain of 
moral and religious experience in early and in matured 
years will not be in vain, the work is committed to the 
press. W. O. B. 

Note. — The compiler will be indebted for reliable information in 
regard to the authorship and time of publication of any of the selec- 
tions not credited to their respective authors, and for any other facts 
of interest appropriate to the topic of this volume. 



CONTENTS. 



Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Anon. i 

Teaching Boston Recorder. 3 

Notes on the Prayer Prof. W. S. Tyler \ Rev. John Todd. . 5 

Music for the Prayer Dr. Thomas Hastings. 6 

In the Quiet Nursery Chamber Anon. 7 

General Hugh Brady Anon. 10 

Eben Merriam W. O. B. 11 

The Unfinished Prayer Lutheran Home Monthly. 12 

The Same, with Music Horatio D. Hewitt. 14 

The Dying Soldier Congregationalist. 16 

Falling Asleep (" Golden head so lowly bending ") 

Putnam's Magazine. 18 

Pattie's Last Prayer Sunday-school Visitor. 20 

Little Rosebud Anon. 2.2. 

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Anon. 23 

Willie's Prayer Parish Visitor. 25 

MUSIC George Henry Curtis. 28 

The Soldier's Prayer Anon. 29 

Little Luther's Prayer Rev. J. N. Barnett. 32 

Now I Lay Me. Anon. 35 

Song and Chorus Miss Hattie A. Fox. 39 

The Same— Music .A. D. Walbridge. 41 

Entering the Shadows Guardian. 42 

A Father's Tribute Guardian. 43 

On the Battle-Field in Mexico N. Y. Sun. 45 

Little Annie Guardian. 46 

In the West the Beams of Day Fanny Crosby. 48 

The Same— Music T. J. Cook. 50 

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Rev. M. Sheeleigh. 51 

Rev, John Newton Rev. M. Sheeleigh. 53 

(ix) 



X CONTENTS. 

Ready to Go Child at Home. 56 

Mother's Last Words Rev. S. lrenceus Prime, D.D. 57 

A Dream of Second Childhood Rev. David Rice. 59 

Now I Lay Me Anon. 61 

Prayer on Horseback Parish Visitor. 63 

At her Mother's Feet while Kneeling Ellwood J. Wilson. 64 

Now I Lay Me " Birdie" in Ch7'istian Woman. 66 

Now that Another Day has Flown Rev. M. Sheeleigh. 67 

Evening Hymn Dr. Lowell Mason. 68 

Kneeling by Her Little Bedside Christian Magazine. 69 

The Same— Music .' A. J. Abbey. 71 

Eighty Years Ago N. B. H. 72 

Auld Reeky y. S. 73 

The Christian Slumber -Song Augusta Browne Garrett. 74 

Music Augusta Browne Garrett. 82 

The Child's Prayer in Other Tongues : 

German Guardian. 84 

Scottish Version. . . Anon. 87 

Dutch Christian Intelligencer. 88 

Latin Rev. Edward Ballard. 90 

Rev. Eliphalet Nott, D.D Boston yournal. 9T 

A Prayer in Monosyllables Guardian. 93 

The Aged Pilgrim's Farewell Thomas F. Harrison. 95 

Dr. Thomas Hastings Thomas F. Harrison. 97 

Rev. Gardiner Spring, D.D Rev. yames O. Murray, D.D. 99 

The Child-Martyr at the Gate Rev. A. C. Wedekind. 102 

Rev. Henry Morris Christian Intellige?icer. 104 

The Child's Unfinished Prayer F. H. H. Thomson. 107 

The Same — Music F. H. H. Thomson . 109 

The Bishop's Prayer. W. O. B. in 

The Peaceful Sleeper Rev. W. W. Page. 113 

Little Eyes and Little Hands Congregation alist. 115 

The Children's Bed-time yane Ellice Hopkins. 117 

The Unfinished Prayer— Music y. P. Webster. 120 

The Children's Altar W. O. B. 122 

Renderings of the Prayer Ibid. 127 

A Monosyllabic Prayer Ibid. 131. 

The Added Line , Ibid. 132 



CONTENTS. x { 

Antiquity of the Prayer Ibid. 133 

Authorship of the Prayer , Rev. H. Harbaugh, D.D. 135 

Catholicity of the Prayer Rev. H. Harbaugh, D.D. 140 

The Pictured Prayer Rev. W. N. Nevins, D.D. 145 

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Miss Hattie A. Fox. 149 

Tribute of an Unknown Miner Wichita (Kansas) Eagle. 151 

Now I Lay Me Lutheran S. S. Herald. 153 

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Augusta Browne Garrett. 156 

Now I Lay Me Eugene H. Pullen. 158 

With Music Mrs. y. M. Barringer. 158 

John Quincy Adams Rev. J. C. Davis, in The Church7?ian. 162 

11 " Rev. Louis Zahner, in The Churchman. 164 

" " Rev. Dr. George E. Ellis, 165 

11 " Rev. G. W. Samson, D.D. 166 

11 " Illustrated American. 169 

Authorship of the Prayer Ibid. 170 

Renderings of the Prayer Ibid. 170 

Ady's " Candle in the Dark " Ibid. 171 

Chaucer, in his "Night Spell". Ibid. 17T 

A modern variant Ibid. 171 

Quenot (French) Ibid. 172 

In the Loire Ibid. 173 

In Sardinia Ibid. 173 

Variations of English Homes. John Brand, M.A., Sir Henry Ellis. 174 

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Aldine S. Kieffer. 176 

Eventide Kate W. Hamilton. 1 78 

Teach the Little Ones to Pray Anon. 180 

The Little Prayer Anon. 183 

The Dying Soldier at South Mountain. .Rev. W. H. Van Hoesen. 185 

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Eugene Field, in Chicago News. 188 

The New England Primer W. O. B. 190 



" And childhood had its litanies 
In every age and clime ; 
The earliest cradles of the race 
Were rocked to poet's rhyme. 

" And haply, pleading long with him, 
For sin-sick hearts and cold, 
The angels of our childhood still 
The Father's face behold." 

Whittier. 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

a s{L *OW I lay me down to sleep ! " 
• ^^ First beside my mother kneeling ; 
Through the hushed-up silence deep, 
Hear the double whisper stealing, 

" If I die before I wake, 
Pray the Lord my soul to take." 

u Now I lay me down to sleep," 

And the angels o'er me bending, 
Sent by God my soul to keep, 

Through the purple light descending, 
Wide-arched wings above me spread, 
Heavenly shelter round my head. 

" Now I lay me down to sleep ! " 

No wild dreams could break that slumber — 
I had prayed for God to keep — 

Blessed visions without number ; 
Glory caught from heavenly things, 
Showered from those angel wings ! 



NOW I LA Y ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

" Now I lay me down to sleep ! " 
Had I died before the waking, 
I had never learned to keep 

Memories of a life's heart-breaking ; 
From the Future and the Past, 
God had caught me up at last. 

" Now I lay me down to sleep ! " 

Ah ! the angels cease their keeping 
Watch above the haunted dreams, 

When the prayerless man is sleeping— 
Where such feverish visions burn, 
Back the sorrowing watchers turn ! 

" Now I lay me down to sleep ! " 
Oh ! my God, when I am dying, 
Hear me pray that old-time prayer, 
On my haunted death-bed lying, 
From the old dreams let me wake— 
" Pray the Lord my soul to take ! " 



TEACHING. 

)T is said of that good old man, JOHN QuiNCY ADAMS, 
that he never went to his rest at night until he had 
repeated the simple prayer learned in childhood — the 
familiar " Now I lay me down to sleep." 

Is there not something inexpressibly touching in the 
thought that these words, breathed by the rosy lips of 
infancy, went with him away down through old age 
into the dark valley of death ? Some people object to 
teaching children forms of prayer, lest the act only be- 
comes a form. But did not Christ teach us to say 
" Our Father " ? 

Do you not remember those still evening hours far 
back in your childhood, when your mother first taught 
you to say those words ? Can you forget the solemn 
hush that fell on everything as she knelt with you and 
commended you to the care of the blessed Father ? 

She is dead now ; but ever as the night falls you think 

of her and the little sister she left in your care — how it 

(3) 



4 NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP 

fell to you to hear the little one repeat the same old 
words in the dim twilight, and how, at last, when she 
had learned to love the Saviour, who watches over the 
little children, He called her suddenly one day to go 
up where they sing the new song. 

Oh, teach the children, the little children, to pray ! 

Years of sin may come, but the memory of those 
early prayers may yet soften the heart, and prepare the 
way for better things. Or, never neglected, this habit 
may grow with their growth, strengthen with their 
strength, become a strong shield against the tempta- 
tions of life, and through faith at last free immortal 
souls from earthly sin. So let us teach the children, 
the little children, to pray. 



The statement made by the Editor of the Boston Re- 
corder, relative to President ADAMS, has the sanction 
of his own high authority. During the delivery of a 
lecture in the Broadway Tabernacle, in the city of New 
York, in speaking of the moral power of early maternal 
training, he referred to the influence of a mother's piety, 
and stated that the little prayer he had learned at her 
knee were the last words always uttered by his lips be- 



NOW I LA Y ME DO WN SO SLEEP. 5 

fore he went to sleep. " When his eyes were about to 
close for the long sleep of death, by his request this 
verse was repeated, that thus simply, but sublimely, he 
might once more leave his spirit in his Father's keep- 

ing." 

Prof. W. S. Tyler, of Amherst College, says : " While 
' Now I lay me down to sleep ' is a prayer expressly 
for children, it has a place in the memory and con- 
science, if it does not dwell also in the heart and on the 
lips of almost every adult in a Christian land." 

Rev. John Todd, of Pittsfield, Mass., wrote : " I do 
not believe there are four lines in the English language, 
not inspired, which have had so much influence in form- 
ing human character, as the lines commencing, ' Now I 
lay me down to sleep/ " 

An unknown writer has said : " This sweet verse has 
for two centuries been the silent censer in which the 
evening incense of childhood has been offered to God, 
associated with the golden censer, whose workmanship 
is divine, ' Our Father who art in Heaven/ He who 
wrote this, with its simple beauty, did not live in vain. 
The world knows not his name, but it blesses his mem- 
ory." 



"NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP." 

From "The Mother's Nursery Songs." Thomas Hastings. 1835. 



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(6) 



AT NIGHT. 

Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take. 

IN THE MORNING. 

Through the night, with slumber pressed, 
The Lord hath giv'n me quiet rest ; 
Let mercy guide me through the day, 
And lead me in the narrow way. 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

)N the quiet nursery chambers, 
Snowy pillows yet unpressed, 
See the forms of little children 

Kneeling, white-robed for their rest, 
All in quiet nursery chambers, 

While the dusky shadows creep, 

Hear the voices of the children — 

" Now I lay me down to sleep." 

In the meadow and the mountain, 

Calmly shine the winter stars, 
But across the glistening lowlands, 

Slant the moonlight's silver bars. 
In the silence and the darkness, 

Darkness growing still more deep, 

Listen to the little children 

Praying God their souls to keep. 

(7) 



8 NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

11 If we die " — so pray the children, 

And the mother's head drops low ; 
(One from out her fold is sleeping 

Deep beneath the winter's snow;) 
" Take our souls " ; and past the casement 

Flits a gleam of crystal light, 
Like the trailing of his garments, 

Walking evermore in light. 

Little souls that stand expectant, 

Listen at the gates of life ; 
Hearing, far away, the murmur 

Of the tumult and the strife. 
We, who fight beneath those banners, 

Meeting ranks of foemen there, 
Find a deeper, broader meaning 

In your simple vesper prayer. 

When your hands shall grasp this standard 

Which to-day you watch from far, 
When your deeds shall shape the conflict 

In this universal war, 
Pray to Him, the God of battles, 

Whose strong eye can never sleep, 
In the warring of temptation, 

Firm and true your souls to keep. 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

When the combat ends, and slowly 

Clears the smoke from out the skies, 
Then far down the purple distance, 

All the noise of battle dies ; 
When the last night's solemn shadows 

Settle down on you and me, 
May the love that never faileth 

Take our souls eternally. 



GENERAL HUGH BRADY. 

EN. HUGH BRADY, well known as one of the 
^nr most meritorious officers of the United States 
army, died some years ago in Detroit, Michigan. Be- 
fore his death he was severely injured by being thrown 
from a carriage ; and when his physician told him he 
could not recover, with that calm self-possession so in- 
dicative of true courage, he replied : " Let the drums 
beat, my knapsack is slung." 

As the General sank under disease, he became par- 
tially unconscious, and his mind wandered back to the 
scenes of his active life. He was again an officer high 
in command, marshaling his army on the battle-field ; 
then a subaltern, obeying the orders of his superior ; 
again a school-boy conning over his lessons ; and finally 
a child at his mother's knee; until, as the night of 
death closed around him forever, he murmured : 

" Now I lay me down to sleep, 

1 pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 

If I should die before I wake, 

I pray the Lord my soul to take." 
(10) 



EBEN MERRIAM. 

THE readers of the daily journals of New York 
and Brooklyn, for nearly twenty-five years, were 
familiar with the initials " E. M.," appended to fre- 
quent contributions relative to meteorological observa- 
tions, incidents of natural history, and numerous facts 
of scientific interest. Their author, Mr. MERRIAM, 
toward the close of his life, was afflicted with a disorder 
which at times gave him great uneasiness. During 
these seasons of depression, when all other efforts failed 
to fix his mind in his devotions, and his power of ex- 
pression was almost lost, his whole heart, as he after- 
ward told a friend, found comfort and peace in the 
prayer first learned in the days of his infancy. The 
creed and prayer of childhood were renewed in the 
child-like faith and trust in which he laid down in the 
sleep which was to him a glorious waking to an un- 
clouded life. 



ui) 



THE UNFINISHED PRAYER. 

" \f^ * ^ a y me " — sa y **» darling; 
W ^r " Lay me," lisped the tiny lips 
Of my daughter, kneeling, bending 
O'er her folded finger tips. 

" Down to sleep " — " to sleep," she murmured, 
And the curly head drooped low ; 

" I pray the Lord," I gently added ; 
" You can say it all, I know." 

" Pray the Lord " — the words came faintly ; 
Fainter still, " My soul to keep " ; 
Then the tired head fairly nodded, 
And the child was fast asleep. 

But the dewy eyes half opened 

When I clasped her to my breast, 

And the dear voice softly whispered, 

" Mamma, God knows all the rest." 
(12) 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

Oh, the trusting, sweet confiding 
Of the child heart ! Would that I 

Thus might trust my Heavenly Father, 
He who hears my feeblest cry. 



13 



THE UNFINISHED PRAYER. 



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" Pray the Lord," the words came faintly, 
Fainter still " my soul to keep ; " 

Then the tired head fairly nodded, 
And the child was fast asleep. 

But the dewy eyes half opened, 
When I clasped her to my breast ; 



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And the dear voice soft - ly whispered, 
" Mamma, God knows all the rest." 



THE DYING SOLDIER. 

a FEW weeks ago, in the hospital at Camp Stone- 
man, a soldier lay in the morning light, with the 
unmistakable signs of hastening death upon his face. 
The Rev. Mr. C. saw the change, and proposed reading 
from the Holy Bible and prayer, as the most fitting and 
mildest intimation to the dying young man of the 
approach of the " inevitable hour/' He promptly 
assented, and when, upon rising from his knees, the 
chaplain sang, " There is a fountain filled with blood," 
the soldier joined in the praise. The same faint voice 
united in singing afterward " Rock of Ages." As the 
day declined he expressed his trust in Jesus, and his 
thoughts went back to his early home and mother's 
knee. 

While the pulse grew feeble, reason remained clear. 
Closing his eyes, he seemed again kneeling by her whose 
name never loses its music to the ear of the expiring 
son. With low tones he said : 

(16) 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 17 

" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
And if I die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take." 

The attendant went to the soldier's side, but he was 
just gone in " the long sleep that knows no waking/' 
The touching lessons of such a history are too apparent 
to need a mention ; adding another to the many hal- 
lowed scenes behind the crimson curtain of war, whose 
story is fragrant with the memories of a Christian home. 



FALLING ASLEEP. 

/^^ OLDEN head so lowly bending, 
^w Little feet so white and bare, 
Dewy eyes half shut, half opened, 
Lisping out her evening prayer. 

Well she knows when she is saying, 
u Now I lay me down to sleep," 

'Tis to God that she is praying, 
Praying Him her soul to keep. 

Half asleep, and murmuring faintly, 
u If I should die before I wake "— 

Tiny fingers clasped so saintly— 
" I pray the Lord my soul to take." 

Oh, the rapture, sweet, unbroken, 

Of the soul who wrote that prayer ! 

Children's myriad voices floating 

Up to heaven, record it there. 
(18) 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

If, of all that has been written, 

I could choose what might be mine, 

It should be that child's petition, 
Rising to the throne divine. 



19 



PATTIE'S LAST PRAYER. 

a BEAUTIFUL little bright-eyed girl was. lying 
upon her bed, rapidly wasting away. It was 
evident she would not last long unless there were some 
sudden and unexpected change. For several days she 
had been apparently unconscious, and was growing 
worse and worse. 

She had been a child of prayer, and her lips had been 
taught to breathe, nightly, an offering to the children's 
Friend. The rosy cheek had turned pale, the little 
form was a mere skeleton, and her hands had become 
as white as the sheet. 

A mother sat by her, watching the pale and silent 

sufferer. It seemed as though God had already come 

and closed her little eyes and shut out the world, that 

she might sleep her last sleep and awake refreshed in 

heaven. 

All at once she opened that soft blue eye, so long 
(20) 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 21 

closed, looked into her mother's face with a sweet, con- 
fiding look, and said : 

" Ma, ma ! I forgot to say my prayers." 
Summoning what strength she had left, she clasped 
her little white fingers together and audibly repeated 
her evening prayer : 

" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take." 

The prayer finished, she never spoke again. Jesus 
heard those sweet words, and the little sufferer went 
where pain and death are no more. So died Pattie 
Buford, only daughter of Major-General John Buford, 
U. S. A. 

The last sigh of earth was " mother ! " the next word 
was " Jesus ! " The last words she ever uttered were a 
prayer ; the next a song of praise in heaven. 



LITTLE ROSEBUD. 

<lfe OSEBUD lay in her trundle-bed, 

W ^ With her small hands folded above her head, 

And fixed her innocent eyes on me, 

While a thoughtful shadow came over their glee. 

" Mamma," said she, " when I go to sleep, 

I pray to the Father my soul to keep ; 

And He comes and carries it far away 

To the beautiful home where His angels stay. 

I gather red roses and lilies so white ; 

I sing with the angels through all the long night ; 

And when, in the morning, I awake from my sleep, 

He gives back the soul I gave Him to keep, 

And I only remember, like beautiful dreams, 

The garlands of lilies, the wonderful streams. 1 ' 



(22) 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

THERE are probably no four lines in the English 
language that are repeated so many times daily 
as the following : 

" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take." 

And it is not only children and youth that repeat 

them. Many whose heads are " silvered over with 

age " have been accustomed to repeat them as their 

last prayer before closing their eyes in sleep, every 

night since they were taught them in infancy. One 

of the most distinguished Presidents of the United 

States was among that number. A Bishop of the 

Methodist Church, in addressing a Sabbath-school, told 

the children that he had been accustomed to say that 

(23) 



24 NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

prayer every night since his mother taught it to him 
when he was a little boy. 

In conversing recently with a ship-master, over sev- 
enty years of age, and who has been for many years a 
deacon in the Church, he said that when he followed 
the seas, and even before he indulged a hope that he 
was a Christian, he never lay down in his berth at night 
without saying with great seriousness, and, he thought, 
sincerity, 

" Now I lay me down to sleep." 

He felt so strongly his need of religion, and his dan- 
ger without it, that he used always to read his Bible, 
and place that precious book under his pillow at night, 
and often to kiss the sacred volume, trusting, no doubt, 
in this reverence for the word of God, instead of trust- 
ing alone in the Saviour. 

Let every reader learn, and every night repeat that 
little prayer — 

" Now I lay me down to sleep." 



WILLIE'S PRAYER. 

*4 N the pleasant nursery, bright 
J With the wood fire's dancing light, 
Full of fun, with many a shout, 
White-robed children run about. 

Now the bed-time frolic past, 
Mother's voice calls them at last : 

Come, my darlings; come and pray 
For God's blessing, night and day." 

Then they kneel, with fair heads bowed, 

And together pray aloud — 

11 . Our Father," and again, 

"Now I lay me." Silence then, 

Like a halo, seems to fall 

On the bended heads of all. 

For mamma said God would hear 

What they whispered in His ear. 

(25) 



26 NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

So their childish wishes sweet 
Silently their hearts repeat. 

Now are raised two curly heads : — 
" Turn and tiss us in our beds " — 
" Tuck us up, please, mamma dear," 
Pleads one darling in her ear. 
Mother's good-night kiss, caressing, 
Is to them like heaven's blessing. 



Only Willie lingers where 
They all knelt by mamma's chair; 
Puzzled, troubled with the doubt 
Whether he should ask right out 
For one thing he wanted so. 
Mother said that God would know 
What was bad, and that He would 
Only give us what was good. 
So — " Please, God, to give to me 
All the good things that would be — 
Good things that are good for me ! " 

Oh, the truth and wisdom rare 
Of the boy's true-hearted prayer ! 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

I, with all my added years, 
Sad to-night with many fears, 
Would be happier if I should 
Change my prayer for doubtful good, — 
Leaving to my Father's ken 
What to give, and how and when ; 
Glad to have Him always know 
What things I have wanted so, 
And to let His love decide 
What good things must be denied 
To me now. — For peace and strife, 
Loss, possession, death, and life, 
Present things, and things to come — 
(Safely kept for me at home) 
All are mine, and God will make 
11 Good for me " for Jesus' sake. 

So to-night my heart has caught 
Blessing from the child's sweet thought, 
And to rest, untroubled, deep, 
Now I lay me down to sleep. 



"NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP." 

Music by G. H. Curtis. 1881. 
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Copyright, 1881, £j Geo. H. Curtis, 



THE SOLDIER'S PRAYER. 

T was the evening after a great battle. All day long 
the din of strife had echoed far, and thickly strewn 
lay the shattered forms of those so lately erect and ex- 
ultant in the flush and strength of manhood. Among 
the many who bowed to the conqueror Death that 
night was a youth in the first freshness of mature life. 
The strong limbs lay listless, and the dark hair was 
matted with gore on the pale broad forehead. His 
eyes were closed. As one who ministered to the suf- 
ferer bent over him, he at first thought him dead ; but 
the white lips moved, and slowly, in weak tones, he 
repeated : 

" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep , 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take ; 
And this I ask for Jesus' sake." 

(29) 



30 



NO W I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 



As he finished he opened his eyes, and meeting the 
pitying gaze of a brother soldier, he exclaimed : " My 
mother taught me that when I was a little boy, and I 
have said it every night since I can remember. Before 
the morning dawns, I believe God will take my soul 
for Jesus' sake ; but before I bid — I want to send a 
message to my mother/' 

He was carried to a temporary hospital, and a letter 
was written to his mother which he dictated, full of 
Christian faith and filial love. He was calm and peace- 
ful. Just as the sun arose his spirit went home, his 
last articulate words being — 

" I pray the Lord my soul to take ; 
And this I ask for Jesus' sake." 

So died William B., of the Massachusetts volunteers. 
The prayer of childhood was the prayer of manhood. 
He learned it at his mother's knee in his distant north- 
ern home, and he whispered it in dying, when his young 
life ebbed away on a southern battle-field. It was his 
nightly petition in life, and the angel who bore his 
spirit home to heaven, bore the sweet prayer his soul 
loved so well. 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 



31 



God bless the saintly words, alike loved and repeated 
by high and low, rich and poor, wise and ignorant, old 
and young ; only second to our Lord's prayer in beauty 
and simplicity. Happy the soul that can repeat it with 
the holy fervor of our dying soldier. 



LITTLE LUTHER'S PRAYER. 

" ^Lik RS. ROSS, may Luther go home with me and 
• ▼r stay to-night ?" said little Alice Bell to the 
minister's wife, who was visiting, with her husband and 
children, among the members of his congregation. 

The family, of which Alice was the youngest, made 
no profession of religion. Mr. Bell was a good man in 
his way — that is, he was honest and kind ; but he had 
never become a child of God. 

Luther went home with Alice, and a pleasant romp 
they had. At last, the children's bed-time came. Now, 
Luther had been taught to kneel down by his papa's 
knee, and to repeat his prayer before going to bed. So 
the artless child, in the absence of his parents, walked 
confidently up to Mr. Bell and knelt down, folded his 
little hands, and in a clear voice repeated : 

" Now I lay me down to sleep, 

I pray the Lord my soul to keep; 
(32) 



NO W I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

If I should die beiore I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take ; 
And this I ask for Jesus* sake. Amea 



33 



?» 



So quietly did the child act, that the old man was 
not aware of his intention until saying "Amen." He 
arose, and going to each, he kissed them good-night. 

Little Alice stood in childish astonishment, wonder- 
ing what the strange proceeding meant. 

When the children were asleep, the family sat long 
and thoughtfully ; each seemed to be pursuing an ab- 
sorbing train of thought. At length Mrs. Bell broke 
the silence, as a tear sparkled on her cheek, saying : 
" What a sweet child ! " 

Mr. Bell took no part in the conversation thus 
started, but leaving his family circle, retired to his 
bedroom. 

He passed a restless night, and to the oft-repeated 
question of his wife, "if he were ill?" he only replied 
" No." 

Morning came, and while breakfast was being pre- 
pared, the children, and their playfulness, seemed to 
drive away the singular gloom of kind Mr. Bell. The 
chairs were placed, and they sat down to breakfast. 
3 



34 NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP, 

Luther, wondering why they did not have worship, 
looked from one to the other as they began to eat 
without the " grace " they always had at home. Think- 
ing, no doubt, that they forgot, he turned his eyes to 
Mr. Bell and said, almost in a whisper, " We didn't 
pray." It was too much. The old man left the table. 
Going into his room, he fell upon his knees and wept 
and prayed. 

Mr. Bell and most of his family now stand at the 
Lord's table with their neighbors, showing how God, 
" out of the mouth of lambs and sucklings " hath per- 
fected praise. Luther did what many sermons and 
exhortations failed to do ; and now he and Alice may 
both repeat their little prayers by Mr. Bell's knee, while, 
with his hands upon their heads, he smiles and echoes 
heartily the amen, and the family altar is erected and 
loved. 

" Feed my lambs," said Christ, and sometimes the 
tender lamb may lead the straying sheep into the fold. 



"NOW I LAY ME 



» 



T 



HE dreamy night draws nigh , 
Soft delicious airs breathe of mingled flowers, 
And on the wings ttf slumber creep the hours. 
The moon is high ; 
See yonder tiny cot, 
The lattice decked with vines — a tremulous ray 
Steals out to where the silver moonbeams lay, 
Yet pales them not ! 
Within, two holy eyes, 
Two little hands clasped softly, and a brow 
Where thought sits busy, weaving garlands now 
Of joys and sighs 
For the swift-coming years. 
Two rosy lips with innocent worship part ; 
List ! be thou saint — or skeptic, if thou art, 
Thou must have ears : 
" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 

(35) 



36 NO W I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

If I should die before^I wake, 

I pray the Lord my soul to take." 
Doth it not noiseless ope 
The very floodgates of thy heart, and make 
A better man of thee for her sweet sake, 
Who, with strong hope, 

Her sweet task ne'er forgot 
To whisper " Now I lay me," o'er and o'er ? 
And thou didst kneel upon the sanded floor — 

Forget them not ! 

From many a festive hall 
Where flashing light and flashing glances vie, 
And robed in splendor, mirth makes revelry — 
Soft voices call 
On the light-hearted throngs 
To sweep the harp strings, and to join the dance. 
The careless girl starts lightly, as perchance, 
Amid the songs, 

The merry laugh, the jest, 
Come to her vision songs of long ago, 
When by her snowy couch she murmured low, 
Before her rest, 
That single infant's prayer. 
Once more at home, she lays her jewels by, 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

Throws back the curls that shade her heavy eye, 
And kneeling there, 

With quivering lip and sigh, 
Takes from her fingers white the sparkling rings, 
The golden coronet from her brow, and flings 
The baubles by ; 
Nor doth she thoughtless dare 
To seek her rest, till she hath asked of Heaven 
That all her sins through Christ may be forgiven. 
Then comes the prayer: 
" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take." 

The warrior on the field, 
After the battle, pillowing his head 
Perhaps upon a fallen comrade dead, 

Scorns not to yield 
To the sweet memories of his childhood's hour, 
When fame was bartered for the crimson flower. 

The statesman gray, 
His massive brow all hung with laurel leaves, 
Forgets his honors while his memory weaves 
A picture of that home, 'mid woods and streams, 



37 



38 NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

Where hoary mountains caught the sun's first beams, 
A cabin rude — the wide fields glistening, 
The cattle yoked, and mutely listening; 
The farmer's toil, the farmer's fare, and best 
Of earthly luxuries, the farmer's rest. 
But hark ! a soft voice steals upon his heart : 
'* Now say your prayer, my son, before we part ;" 
And clasping his great hands — a child once more, 
Upon his breast, forgetting life's long war — 

Thus hear him pray : 
" Now I lay me down to sleep, 

I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 

If I should die before I wake, 

I pray the Lord my soul to take." 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP, 

" AfOW I lay me down to sleep," 

• ^ And the blue eyes, dark and deep, 
Let their snowy curtains down, 
Edged with fringes golden brown. 
"All day long the angels fair, 
I've been watching over there ; 
HeavVs not far, 'tis just in sight, 
Now they're calling me, good-night ! 
Kiss me, mother, do not weep, 
Now I lay me down to sleep." 

Chorus — Over there, just over there, 

I shall say my morning prayer ; 
Kiss me, mother, do not weep, 
" Now I lay me down to sleep." 

Tangled ringlets, all smooth now, 
Looped back from the waxen brow ; 

(39) 



40 



NOW J LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

Little hands so dimpled, white, 
Clasped together cold to-night. 
Where the mossy, daisied sod, 
Brought sweet messages from God, 
Two pale lips with kisses pressed, 
There we left her to her rest, 
And the dews of evening weep 
Where we laid her down to sleep. 

Chorus — Over there, just over there, 

List the angel's morning prayer ; 
Lispings low through fancy creep, 
" Now I lay me down to sleep ! " 






"NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP." 

Words by Miss Hattie A. Fox. Music by Arthur D. Walbridge. 

Moderato. 



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Kiss me, mother, do not weep, Now I lay me down to sleep." 
And the dews of evening weep, Where we laid her down to sleep. 

Used by permission of the Publishers. Song and Chorus— published by 
Wm. A. Pond & Co. 

(4i) 



ENTERING THE SHADOWS. 

a BEAUTIFUL incident is recorded of a little girl 
who was taken sick and confined to the bed which 
proved her death-bed. When she neared her end, and 
the shades of death began to settle down around her, 
she imagined that night was approaching, and that she 
was just retiring to her nightly rest. She began to re- 
peat her accustomed prayer, and her voice growing 
feebler as she reached the last line, she whispered, 

" I pray the Lord my soul to t — " 

And with the last word unfinished she passed into the 
presence of Him who said, " Suffer little children to 
come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the 
kingdom of heaven. " 



(42) 



A FATHER'S TRIBUTE. 

)N a public religious meeting a gentleman arose, and 
said he knew there was a great deal of practical 
unbelief on the subject of the conversion of little chil- 
dren. He alluded to the too common custom of 
fathers to throw all the religious instruction of children 
upon their mothers. The father rises early, eats a hur- 
ried meal, and goes to his business, and comes home 
late — too late even to kiss his children good-night — and 
the next day repeats the round. And so life is spent, 
and children see and hear little or nothing from their 
fathers in leading them to Jesus Christ. 

He said he had lost three darling children by diph- 
theria recently. It was a consolation that those chil- 
dren were consecrated to Jesus as soon as they were 
born. They had instruction accordingly. The eldest, 
only nine years old, had a strong impression that he 
was to be a foreign missionary. He was always talking 
about his future work. And he began it by getting 

(43) ' 



44 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 



some of his companions together, and reading and 
explaining the Scriptures to them, in a manner that 
was surprising to older listeners. 

When he was taken sick, he said, " Father, I know I 
shall die. I am going to be with Jesus. I want to go. 
Don't give me any more medicine. Don't try to keep 
me. Let me go. I want to go." He died praying. 

The second was only three years old, and seemed to 
have the same spirit of love to Jesus. When he was 
dying, and he could scarcely say a word, he told his 
mother he wanted to say his prayer. He was lying on 
her lap. She told him to say his prayer. 

" Oh, not so," said the child ; " I want to say them 
on my knees." 

She raised him on his knees on her lap. He put his 
little arms around her neck, and with great difficulty 
uttered every word of 

u Now I lay me down to sleep ! " 

When it was finished she laid him down, but he was 
gone — fallen asleep to wake and be " forever with the 
Lord." 



ON THE BATTLE-FIELD IN MEXICO. 

^\NE of the soldiers in the American army, dur- 
^^ ing the war with Mexico, was found mortally 
wounded, and was carried off by a comrade and laid 
under a tree. As the wounded man saw the life-blood 
flowing rapidly away, he said to his comrade, " Talk to 
me! Why do you not talk to me?" meaning to ask 
for some spiritual advice and direction. The comrade 
was not a religious man, and could not give it ; although 
he remembered some words which he had learned at 
his mother's knee, and he began repeating, and the 
wounded man repeated after him, the simple prayer, 

" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take ! " 

The lingering messenger of death paused till the 
prayer was uttered, when he took away the spirit into 
the silent land. 

(45) 



Ai 



LITTLE ANNIE, 



ORE than twenty years ago little Annie L- 



the child of a good missionary, died in India. 
She was only three years of age, yet the closing of her 
life afforded a lovely type of that rest which remaineth 
for the people of God. 

She went as calmly to her last repose as the closing 
flower at nightfall. As her sight began to fail, though 
only three o'clock in the afternoon, she said to her 
parents, " Good-night, mamma ; good-night, papa ! " — 
her usual words before going to sleep — and then went 
on to repeat — 

" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ! 

A — a — men." 

Bless the child ! she was lying down to sleep — to 

sleep in the arms of Jesus, " who died for us, that 
(46) 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 47 

whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with 
Him." She did not live to say — 

" If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take." 

But the Lord took her in the midst of her evening 
prayer, when she mistook the darkness of death gath- 
ering over her for the shades of evening, and, bidding 
her parents " Good-night," sweetly yielded her spirit 
to her Heavenly Father, who never slumbers or sleeps. 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP 

WITH MUSIC. 

'g N the west the beams of day 
3 Slowly, softly die away ; 
Now the evening shadows falling, 
All my better thoughts recalling, 
Wrap the earth in silence deep ; — 
Now I lay me down to sleep. 

Father, hear my simple prayer, 
Take me now beneath Thy care ; 
Then, whose gentle hand has led me 
All day long, and kindly fed me, 
Still Thy child in safety keep — 
While I lay me down to sleep. 

Should the messenger of death 

Steal away my fainting breath ; 
(48) 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

Should I hear his spirit warning, 
Ere the dewy light of morning, 
Still Thy child in safety keep — 
Let me wake — no more to sleep. 



49 



"NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP." 



" I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep ; for thou, Lord, only makest me 
dwell in safety." — Psalm 4 : 8. 



Words by Fanny Crosby. 






T. J. Cook 



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of the Publishers, 

(5o) 



"NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP." 

" iVT^ * * a y me ^ own to s ^ ee p? 

v ^r I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take. " 

Well known, like words oft said and sung, 
And yet not known whence it hath sprung, 
This pray'r has moved the heart and tongue, 
For long, long years, of old and young. 

Who is there that was led our plain, full tongue 
To know and speak when round the head were rung 
The strains which lull to sleep the babe's soft eyes, 
Learned not from lips most dear to lisp and prize 
These sweet old words of pray'r, our hearts shall keep, 
Keep and love, — " Now I lay me down to sleep " ? 

Oh, who of us the hearts could think to tell 
That knew these lines, and used them long and well 

(5i) 



52 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 



Each eve, from those bright days that cheer the child, 
To days far on through scenes both stern and mild, 
When age bears down, and men, for their last sleep, 
Call out, — " I pray the Lord my soul to keep " 

How oft that pray'r calls up to youth and age 

Dear home, loved forms, sweet hours, and God's blest page 

Brings back once more a time when all was bright, 

When heav'n was to the eyes all but in sight, 

And mind was wont in deep, calm thought to take 

The words, — " If I should die before I wake " ! 

Blest words, so framed that they might suit each tongue ; 

Well joined, for high and low, for old and young ; 

Fit words to use each night when bent the knee ; 

And fit the line, if this the last should be 

Of all the pray'rs we pray ere we shall wake 

In heav'n, — " I pray the Lord my soul to take " ! 



REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

Y* EV. M. SHEELEIGH, of Pennsylvania, alluding 
P* ^ to the following incident narrated of Mr. NEW- 
TON, says : 

" It possesses a double interest, as its subject became 
a pious and useful minister, and composed many hymns, 
numbers of which are found in the hymn-books of all 
churches. Such as these are widely and familiarly 
known : 

" i How sweet the name of Jesus sounds' ; 

" ' Safely through another week ' ; 

" * One there is above all others' ; 

" ' Lord ! I cannot let Thee go ' ; 

" ' O Lord ! our languid souls inspire ' ; 

" i Oft as the bell with solemn toll.' 

" Mr. NEWTON was born in England in 1725, and died 
in 1807. He lost his mother when he was seven years 
old, and his conversion to God took place in earfy 
manhood." 

(53) 



54 NO W I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

JOHN NEWTON — a name known to all the friends oJ 
religion, both for the remarkable features of his relig 
ious history, and for the usefulness of his life — broke 
away in his youth from the restraints of a pious educa- 
tion, and became profligate, addicted to every vice, and 
connected himself as a mariner with a vessel engaged 
in slave-trading. Will you look into a mind so deeply 
debased for any remaining traces of his early education 
and of a mother's prayers ? Behold him wandering upon 
the sands of Africa, so debased and wretched in char- 
acter as to be despised and cast out by the negro sav- 
ages. And can the memory of a mother's influence 
reach him here ? He lies down upon the sands for his 
repose for the night — his thoughts stray back to the 
scenes of his childhood — he finds himself repeating the 
little prayer learned in the nursery : 

" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take ! n 

The influence of other days rushes back over his 
mind with overpowering impressions. By the grace of 
GOD his soul is renewed ; the sequel you know. 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 



55 



It may seem a small matter to you now, mothers, 
that your children are fixing upon their minds the im- 
pression of that simple form of religious thought. But 
if you are binding upon the hearts of your children the 
cords by which, after wandering so far, they are to be 
brought back to hope and heaven, you are doing a 
great work. 



READY TO GO. 

-dT was bed-time for little Arthur; and in his white 
3 night-dress, with folded hands, he knelt by his aunt 
to pray. He asked God to take care of his absent fa- 
ther and mother ; of Freddie, his elder brother ; and of 
the baby ; then offered that prayer so sweet for the 
children — 

u Now I lay me down to sleep ! " 

So earnest were his petitions, and so full of confi- 
dence was he that he would be answered, that his 
prayer formed a strong contrast to many from older 
life. After kissing his aunt good-night, he looked up 
once more, and said : " Now, if my Father in heaven 
wants me to go home to Him to-night, I am ready 
to go ! " 

It was the utterance of a sweet child-like trust in 

God, such as should give consolation and peace to 

every Christian. 
(56) 



MOTHER'S LAST WORDS. 

-gj EV. S. IREN^US PRIME, D.D., editor of the 
P^f New York Observer, writes of the death of his 
mother, as follows : 

" She was eighty-six years old ; her mind as vigorous 
and clear, and her spirit as elastic and cheerful as in 
the prime of her life. The day before she died, she 
asked me to read to her some of the Divine songs for 
children by Dr. WATTS, the most of which she had known 
by heart full fourscore years. As I read, she made re- 
marks on them, showing how clearly she felt their force 
and beauty. The next morning as I came to her bed- 
side (she was evidently dying), she said, i lay me down.' 
I arranged her pillow, thinking her head was not lying 
easily; but she repeated, 'lay me down/ and her tongue 
was refusing to do its office, so that she could hardly 

articulate. I held her hand in both of mine, while she 

(57) 



58 NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

made one more dying effort to speak, and then I heard 
her say — 

" ' Now I lay me down ' 

and she went ' to sleep ' on these words, the same that 
she taught me, holding my hand in hers, more than 
sixty years before." 



A DREAM OF SECOND CHILDHOOD. 

)N my family there resides an old man who has lived 
eighty-six years. He is a member of the church, 
but for several years past has been so feeble, both in 
body and mind, that he has not gone away from home, 
even to attend church. His mind, once strong and 
vigorous, has become broken, and he is at present more 
like a child five or six years old, than like a vigorous 
man. But he will sit down and take the Bible and 
read whole chapters aloud. At such times he seems to 
understand not only what he is doing, but seems to 
enjoy it greatly. 

One evening after he had retired for the night, he 
called in his daughter, seeming to imagine that she was 
his mother. 

" Mother," said he, " come here to my bed, and hear 
me say my prayers before I go to sleep." 

His daughter obeyed and stood by his bed. Then 

(59) 



60 NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

the old man clasped his hands with great reverence and 
repeated that child's beautiful evening prayer : 

" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take." 

He was apparently a child again, saying his prayers 
at his mother's knee. 



"NOW I LAY ME." 

^^ ^OW I lay me down to sleep, 

* ^r I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep ; 

If I should die before I wake, 

I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take. 

Now I lay me down to sleep, 
A little child, dear Saviour, keep ; 
Send to me pleasant dreams to-night, 
And guard me till the morning light. 

And when at morn I ope my eyes, 
Oh, let my thoughts to Thee arise, 
Thanking Thee, Lord, for all Thy love, 
While looking from Thy heaven above. 

Watch me, dear Saviour, through the day, 

While at my work, or at my play, 

So that wherever I may be 

Thine eye may still be guarding me. 

(61) 



62 NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

And should I die before I wake, 

Oh, then my spirit, Jesus, take ! 

Washed from my sins through Thy dear lovej 

Oh, take me to Thy home above. 

Thou sayest, " Children, come to Me"; 
Dear Jesus, I have come to Thee ; 
Oh, then, in life, in death, may I 
Upon Thy gracious love rely ! 



THE PRAYER ON HORSEBACK. 

a BISHOP of the Episcopal Church tells a story 
of an old friend of his who, on a certain occa- 
sion, was hard put to it to make a prayer. He was 
riding along the road on horseback, when something 
suddenly frightened his horse. He soon lost all con- 
trol of the animal and gave himself up as lost. He 
wanted to pray, but could think of nothing to say. 
But there was no time to be lost — he must pray. He 
then remembered the little prayer his mother taught 
him, and, putting his hands down on the saddle and 
closing his eyes, he repeated out-loud : 

" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take." 

He told the bishop he felt a great deal better after the 

prayer, and that his fright was all gone. His horse 

stopped of his own accord, and the old gentleman 

escaped without harm. 

(63) 



"NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP." 

aT her mother's feet, while kneeling 
With her head upon her lap, 
And her golden ringlets stealing 
From her loose and open cap, 
Knelt a child in years quite tender, 
With a smile my mind will keep, 
As she gently tries to render, 
" Now I lay me down to sleep." 

And her mother, while there list'ning, 

With her cheek and brow aglow, 
Could not keep her eyes from glist'ning, 

As the tears began to flow ; 
Then the child thus uttered faintly, 

As the mother stopped to weep, 
With her little hands clasped saintly, 

il Now I lay me down to sleep." 

Could I have this darling by me, 

How my heart with joy would leap; 
(64) 



NOW I Z._ . ME DOWN SO SLEEP. 65 

For I'd hear, if she was nigh me, 
11 Grant, Lord ! my soul to keep." 

Then again she'd whisper softly, 
" Should I die before I wake," 

God in heaven, Thou, most lofty, 
" Grant, Lord ! my soul to take." 

O, how lovely ! O, what rapture ! 

O, what beauty in that prayer ! 
When a child with it can capture 

Hearts that no man can ensnare. 
When I reach death's stormy billow, 

And my friends around me weep, 
May some child lisp at my pillow, 

" Now I lay me down to sleep." 



"NOW I LAY ME. M 

" / lV f OW I ^ a y me down to sleep — " 

• ^^ Little heads so lowly bended — 
" Now I lay me down to sleep — " 
Little flock so gently tended — 
11 1 pray the Lord my soul to keep." 
God will keep their souls this night, 
Like a gentle, loving Father 

Keep them till the morning's light. 

" If I should die "—Oh ! spare them, Father- 

11 If I should die before I wake — " 
Ah ! the mother's head drops lower — 

" I pray the Lord my soul to take." 
Little prayers so softly uttered, 

Little angels kneeling there, 
Little children, God will hear you 

Offering up your evening prayer. 

(66) 



NOW I LAY ME. 

NOW that another day has flown, 
/, who have countless blessing knowr 
Would lay me down upon my bed, 
To sleep in peace till night has fled. 

L pray, ere I my pillow press, 
The Lord will me in mercy bless, 
And that my soul His favor will 
Be pleased to keep all night from ill. 

But if 'twere well in His blest sight, 
In whom / live each day and night, 
This form should die, so soon, and here, 
Before I wake, may I not fear. 

And should I thus be called, I pray 

The Lord, my Maker and my stay, 

That He my soul, for Jesus' sake, 

From earth to heaven would deign to take. 

(67) 



EVENING HYMN. 

THE day is past and over, 
I lay me down to sleep; 
May angels round me hover, 
And from all danger keep. 

I thank the bounteous Giver 
For all His gifts this day ; 

And pray that I may ever 
His care with love repay. 

I pray Him to forgive me 
For every sin this day, 

And always strength to give me 
His statutes to obey. 

I pray Him to awake me 

At early morning gleam ; 

And when I die to take me 

To dwell in Heaven with Him, 
(68) 



NOW I LAY ME. 

KNEELING by her little bedside, 
Dimpled feet so white and bare ; 
Hands upon the bosom folded, 
Hear her lisp her evening prayer ; 
" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep." 

In His arms He safely held me 

Through the long and happy day ; 
And when night's uncertain shadows 
Folded round her, she could say, 
"If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take." 

Like this little one, my Saviour, 
Let me come to Thee to-night ; 

Through the dark and silent watches, 

Guide me to the morning light. 

Take me to Thy loving breast, 

And fold me in Thine arms to rest 

(6q) 



70 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

On Thy love alone depending, 
Lead me to the life divine ; 
Let the prayer of trusting childhood 
In the fullest sense be mine ; 
If I wake or if I sleep, 
Tis Thou alone my soul must keep. 



'NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP." 



" But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, * * * ; and thy Father which 
seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." — Matt. 6 : 6. 



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(70 



EIGHTY YEARS AGO. 

a CORRESPONDENT writes to the compiler as 
follows : 
" I am now an old man, and I doubt not my mothei 
taught me this prayer, say eighty years ago. Being an 
invalid, I usually use one of the following couplets : 

" ' If I am ne'er from this bed to rise, 
Give me sweet rest in paradise.' 

Or— 

" ' If I die ere I leave this bed, 

Give me sweet rest with Thy holy dead.' ' 



(72) 



AULD REEKY. 

a SON of Scotland, who has spent the last fifty 
years of his life in this country, and is now 
standing at the head of his profession, gives the follow- 
ing tribute : 

" In ' Auld Reeky ' (Scotland), in the days of yore, 
I was taught that precious little prayer by my dear, 
good mother. When GOD gave me children I was led 
to feel its potency, and for years it was nightly repeated 
by my little ones at my own knee. They all feel its 
effect to-day, and show it, thank GOD ! 

" How strange ! Of late, when I have pillowed my 
head for the night, that little simple prayer has invol- 
untarily sprung up in my mind, and with special de- 
voutness I have felt to utter it. It brings back a thou 
sand associations which have been stored away in the 
memory. They have frequently brought to me ' Songs 

in the night.' God is good." 

(73) 



THE CHRISTIAN SLUMBER-SONG. 



« ^pow I 

w ^r I pr 



lay me down to sleep, 
pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take. 
And this I ask for Jesus 1 sake. Amen." 

The first four lines of this slumber-song are probably 
the most often repeated of any in the language. Other 
evening orisons there are, more stately and elaborate, 
but the brevity and pathos of this render it a general 
favorite. There is a poem on sleep by old Sir THOMAS 
BROWN — a nightly half-adieu to the world — of which 
the following striking lines are an extract : 

" Sleep is a death ; oh, make me try 
By sleeping what it is to die ; 
And as I gently lay my head 
On my grave as now my bed, 
Howe'er I rest, great God, let me 
Awake again, at last, with Thee ; 
(74) 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 75 

And thus assured, behold, I lie 

Securely — or to wake or die. 

These are my drowsy days ; in vain 

I do now wake to sleep again. 

Oh, come that hour, when I shall never 

Sleep again, but wake for ever." 

And who does not know and love the immortal 
1 Glory to Thee, my God, this night ! " by Bishop 
KEN, which, it is said, that excellent prelate always 
himself repeated before sleeping. The author of the 
simple stanza, " Now I lay me down to sleep," be- 
queathed to humanity a far more valuable legacy than 
did Byron, Shelley, Goethe, or any other of the so- 
called illuminati, who have vexed feeble souls by their 
instillations of evil, and led them astray by their infidel 
scoffings at holy truths. 

Its origin seems to be obscure, but by virtue of its 
age, value, and precious associations, it has attained to 
the rank of a devotional classic. Its very simplicity is 
one of its charms. Except in one word, it is composed 
entirely of monosyllables. No doubt it may be claimed 
as an American production, as I do not find a trace of 
it in any English book that I have met. BARTLETT ac- 
credits it to the " New England Primer" of the days of 



j6 NO W I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

our grandfathers. Perchance it is the reverent effusion 
of the so-styled " mirror of her age, and the glory of her 
sex," Mistress Anne Bradstreet, whose pen flour- 
ished two hundred and thirty years agone in Boston ; 
or it may be even more ancient. It is often quoted 
erroneously, " I pray tke" instead of " I pray Thee " ; 
not the article the, but the pronoun Thee, is correct. 
The latter reading essentially alters the sense, making 
the appeal definite and personal. 

Nor is the fondness for the modest poem limited to 
any class or age. Tens of thousands, inclusive of the 
profound scholar and the unlettered hind, the silver- 
haired pilgrim awaiting the opening of the celestial 
gates, and the lisping infant just entering on the jour- 
ney of life, invoke nightly, in its quaint numbers, the 
blessing of the Father of all. A short time previous to 
his death, JOHN QuiNCY ADAMS told his pastor that 
his mother had taught it to him in infancy, and that he 
never omitted to say it on retiring to rest. A distin- 
guished judge of New York, who died some years since 
in extreme old age, made a similar assertion. An emi- 
nent bishop, in addressing a Sunday-school, said that 
every night since his mother taught it to him a babe at 
her knee, he was accustomed to repeat it before sleep- 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP, 



77 



ing, A venerable doctor of divinity, who perceived a 
mother teaching some short prayers and hymns to her 
children, remarked, " Madam, your instructions may be 
far more important to your children than you are now 
aware. My mother taught me a little hymn when a 
child, and it is of use to me to this day. I never close 
my eyes to rest without first saying : 

" ' Now I lay me down to sleep, etc.* " 

An old shipmaster declared that even before he 
became a decided Christian, he never omitted it on 
turning in at night. It has even trembled on the lips 
of the dying. An affecting instance of this occurred at 
the death of a young man, a noted member of an Ethi- 
opian minstrel troupe. A friend who was beside hhn 
in his last moments, relates that when one pre*/; at 
asked him if he should read some good book to ///m, 
" Read me Shakespeare," said he, " read me Shake- 
speare." The gentleman urged him now to think of 
another world, saying, " Frank, there is yet time." 

Poor G said nothing for some moments. Death 

was rapidly approaching. He folded his hands across 
his breast. " Time" said he, at length, " there is yet 
time ! " Then lifting his hands as if in supplication, 



73 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 



he commenced to recite the little prayer, probably 
taught him by his mother : 

" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray to God my soul to keep." 

Here he paused and murmured, " There is yet time, 
and continued to recite : 

" And if I die before I wake, 
I pray to God " 

Here he was rapidly sinking. He gasped, " I pray to 
God — ah, time — time — 

" my soul to take." 

And as the last words died away on his lips, his spirit 
fled. 

There was an aged saint of eighty-six years, the Rev. 
Mr. TAYLOR, familiarly termed Father TAYLOR, the 
famous sailor-preacher of Boston, whose mind had so 
failed that he did not recognize even his own daughter. 
A witness says that very touching was the scene on the 
last night of his life. He called his daughter to his 
bedside as if she were his mother, saying, like a little 
child, " Mother, come here by my bed, and hear me say 






NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. jg 

my prayers before I go to sleep." She came near. He 
clasped his white, withered hands reverently, and whis- 
pered : 

11 Now I lay me down to sleep," etc. " Amen." 

Then quietly fell asleep, and awoke in heaven. 

Still, with all its excellence, the little petition lacks 
the vital element — the recognition of the Intercessor. 
Some one has added a fifth line which admirably sup- 
plies the deficiency, and makes it distinctly Christian : 

" And this I ask for Jesus' sake." 

So let us always say it. 

Are mothers nowadays as assiduous in teaching their 
children divine songs as were the mothers of the olden 
time? Doubtless in rare instances they are, but are 
not many of the most valuable nursery rhymes sadly 
neglected ? The beautiful cradle-hymn of Dr. WATTS 
— and who was a safer poet for children ? — " Hush, my 
dear, lie still and slumber/' full of pure divinity and 
tender worship, which was sung to her little ones by my 
own dear mother and hosts of other dear mothers now 
singing in joy in " Jerusalem-the-Golden," seems to be 
considered as old-fashioned, and to be superseded by 



80 NO IV I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

[others] inculcating a distorted theology most inju, 
rious in after-life. Only less evil are the trashy lilts 
and nursery rhymes with which thoughtless nurses 
quiet their charges. Let us prize the holy versicles 
our foremothers used to sing ; let them still be used 
and cherished as sacred household words. 

There is a companion prayer for the morning, author 
also unknown, which may be welcomed by some : 



Now I wake me up from sleep, 

I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep ; 

If I should die before the eve, 

I pray Thee, Lord, my soul receive. 

For Jesus' sake this mercy give. Amen. 






»» 



Melody has the effect of impressing words on the 
mind — we remember better what is sung than what is 
merely said ; therefore, thinking that many might like 
to use it thus framed, I have composed for the dear 
old stanza, and sacred to itself, the music which may be 
found in the accompanying pages. I hope that it may 
receive a kindly greeting, and resound from many a 
chamber. The air will also suit the morning prayer. 
There is a pretty poem, in which, after alluding to the 



NO W I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 



81 



memories which have haunted him from youth up- 
ward, the writer closes with the petition : 



Now I lay me down to sleep ! ' 
Oh, my God ! when I am dying, 
Hear me pray that old-time prayer, 
On my haunted death-bed lying ; 
From the old dreams let me wake — 
* I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take ! 



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(82) 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 



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MORNING PRAYER. 

Now I wake me up from sleep, 

I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep ; 

If I should die before the eve, 

I pray Thee, Lord, my soul receive ; 

||: For Jesus' sake this mercy give. :|| Amen. 



THE CHILD'S PRAYER IN OTHER 
TONGUES. 

a CONTRIBUTOR to the Guardian, in connec- 
tion with the subject of the Child's Prayer, wrote 
as follows : 

" We have many beautiful German prayers for little 
children, and I know that no one repeats them more 
fondly than I do. Here is one, for instance, which my 
dear old grandmother taught me when I was a little 
boy, and which I have been repeating, morning and 
evening, ever since that time : 

" Christi Blut und Gerechtigkeit 
Das ist mein Schmuck und Ehrenkleid, 
Darait will ich vor Gott bestehen, 
Wenn ich in Himmel werd' eingehen." 

But, then, would it not be well if the Child's Even- 
ing Prayer would be repeated by our German and En- 
glish children, and thus the communion of little saints 

be established ? 

(84) 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 85 

The writer then gives the following translation : 

" Nun leg' ich mich zu schlafen nieder, 
Der Herr sei meiner Seele Hiiter, 
Und sollt* ich, eh ich wache, sterben, 
Mach' Er meine' seel 'zum Himmelserben." 

Another correspondent of the Guardian furnished 
the following translations : 

" Jesu, zum schlafen, ich lege mich nieder, 
Behiit und bewache die Seel' und die Glieder, 
Und sollte ich sterben, eh das ich aufwache, 
O Herr mich zum Erben des Himmels doch mache." 

11 Nun leg' ich mich, es kommt der Schlaf, 
Ich bitte Herr, behiit dein Schaaf, 
Und sollt ich sterben, eh ich erwache, 
Ich mein Seele Dir ewig vermache." 

One of the most widely used of the prayers for chil- 
dren in the German language is the following : 

" Miide bin ich, geh' zur Ruh, 
Schliesse meine Augen zu, 
Vater, lass* die Augen dein 
Ueber meinen Bette Sein." 



86 NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

" Hab' ich unrecht heut' gethan, 
Sieh* es, lieber Gott, nicht an 3 
Deine Gnad' und Jesu Blut 
Macht alien Schaden gut." 

TRANSLATION. 

" Tired I am, I go to rest, 
Close my eyes in slumber blessed, 
Open, Father, now Thine eye, 
Be in care unto me nigh. 

" Did I commit any wrong ! 
Do not punish me too strong ! 
For Thy grace, and Jesus' blood, 
Is my shield before Thee, God ! Amen." 

The following translation of " Now I lay me down 
to sleep," is from the pen of Mr. Zahm, of Lan- 
caster, Pa. : 

" Nun leg ich mich zu schlafen hin, 
Ich bit der Herr in meinem Sinn, 
Das sollt ich sterben eh ich wach, 
Er meine Seel gen Himmel trag. 

A contributor to the Guardian (April, 1866) pre- 
serves the following prayer in German, very similar to 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. gy 

the English, which his mother taught to all the chil- 
dren. The editor states that the faults in the rhythm 
may be the result of long traditional use and preserva- 
tion. The prayer had never been seen in print, but 
was given from memory : 

44 Nun will ich mich legen und schlafen 
Und mich auf den lieben Gott verlassen ; 
Wenn mich der Tod enchleicht, 
So nim mich Gott in das Himmlische reich. Amen." 



THE SCOTTISH VERSION. 

41 This night when I lie down to sleep 
I gi'e my soul to Christ to keep ; 
1 wake a* noo, I wake a' never, 
I gi'e my soul to Christ forever." 

Which would be, in our English words, as a great many 
say it : 

" This night as I lie down to sleep, 
I give my soul to Christ to keep ; 
Wake I at morn, or wake I never, 
I give my soul to Christ forever/' 



THE PRAYER IN DUTCH. 

a VERSION of the Children's Prayer in the Dutch 
language is given by a correspondent of the (N. 
Y.) Christian Intelligencer, who admits its traditional 
imperfections as a specimen of literature in the mother- 
tongue of the Hollanders. He explains its faults as 
follows : 

" It is a prayer, taught me by an old colored woman 
inherited as a slave by my mother, with whom she lived 
until the time of her death. She often repeated it to 
me in my childhood when putting me to bed. I also 
give an almost verbatim rendering in English. 

" ' Liever Vorder en der Hamel, 

Spor mij daur de nocht, 

Lort mij moyer oughent zinner 

En de ghrotness von die macht/ 
(88) 



8 9 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 
TRANSLATION. 

" ' Loving Father in the heavens, 
Spare me through this night, 
Let me see the handsome morning 
In the greatness of Thy might.' 



" The last line was for a long time quite a puzzle to 
me, but when I did comprehend its full meaning, the 
stanza took its place side by side with l Now I lay me 
down to sleep/ " 

ANOTHER VERSION. 

A second correspondent of the Intelligencer gave a 
more correct version of the prayer in the following 
lines : 

Lieve Vader in den Hemel, 

Spaar mij weder in dees' nacht ! 

Laat me Uw schoonen ochtend weerzien 
En de grootheid van Uw macht! 



THE PRAYER IN LATIN. 

5KR. L. H. STEINER, of Frederick, Md., contrib- 
-«■ uted to the Guardian the following version of 
the prayer in Latin, by Rev. EDWARD BALLARD : 

Nunc reclino ut dormirem 

Precor te, O Domine, 
Ut defendas animam ; 
Ante diem si obirem, 

Precor te, O Domine, 
Ut sevares animam. 

Hoc que precor quo Jesu ! 



(90) 



REV. ELIPHALET NOTT, D.D. 

*fe EV. DR. NOTT, President of Union College, 
-P" ▼" was one of the remarkable men of his day. His 
learning, eloquence, and scientific attainments, which 
assumed a practical form in several important improve- 
ments and inventions, gave him a distinguished place 
in the popular estimate, as well as in the literary and 
ecclesiastical sphere in which he moved. A correspond- 
ent of the Boston Journal, in a tribute to his memory, 
related the following : 

" The last few hours of Dr. Nott's life were pecu- 
liarly impressive. He sank into a second childhood 
that was peculiarly tender. He lay on his bed blind 
and apparently unconscious. His wife sat by his bed- 
side and sang to him day by day the songs of his child- 
hood. He was hushed to repose by them like an infant 
on its pillow. Watts' Cradle Hymn, 'Hush, my dear! 

lie still and slumber/ always soothed him. Visions 

(91) 



9 2 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 



of home floated before him, and the name of his moth- 
er was frequently on his lips. The last time he con- 
ducted family devotions with his household, he closed 
his prayer with the well-known lines : 

" ' Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take.' " 



A PRAYER IN MONOSYLLABLES. 

)T would be very difficult to compose a verse of four 
lines, all but one of the words being monosyllables, 
that should contain as much simple, natural, devotional 
sentiment as the familiar nursery stanzas : 

* Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take." 

We do not think a word of it should be altered, or 

aught added to it, nor taken from it, without the final 

consent of all the children between two and five years 

of age, that can speak their mother-tongue, assembled 

in general convention, on some given day at 12 M. We 

have no objection to imitations or rivalries, but we 

insist upon it that those four lines, fragrant as they are 

with the breath of millions of the little ones whose 

(93) 



94 NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

lips they have passed, shall be allowed to stand by 
themselves just as they are. 

The following six lines are thought to be worthy of 
a place beside the others. The lines are very simple 
and appropriate, and we heartily commend them to 
parents and teachers as eminently suitable for a child's 
morning orison : 

" Now I wake and see the light ; 
'Tis God hath kept me through the night ; 
To Him I lift my voice and pray 
That He would keep me through the day ; 
If I should die before 'tis done, 
O God, accept me through Thy Son." 



THE AGED PILGRIM'S FAREWELL. 

a FEW years ago a prominent pastor of this city 
was called to visit an aged saint. She was very 
poor, and very ill, and her memory at the age of eighty- 
three was almost wholly gone. She said to the minister, 
as he sat at her bedside, " I forget even my prayers." 

" Can you remember none of them ? " 

" No. I wish I could." 

" You certainly remember ' Now I lay me '?" 

" I could not say it through," she answered. 

" Would you like to say it after me? " he inquired. 

" Oh, yes, indeed ! " 

Kneeling by her side he said over the first line, which 
she repeated after him. Then the second and the third 
lines. The fourth was dictated, and when she had re- 
peated the words, 

" I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take ! " 

(95) 



g6 NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

he added, 

il And this I ask for Jesus' sake." 

There was no response, and on looking at her for the 
reason, he saw that her dear Lord had already answered 
the prayer of His child, and that, for her, the infirmities 
of earth were gone forever. 



DR. THOMAS HASTINGS. 

#^\NE evening in the fall of 1845 or '4-6, 1 attended the 
^^ weekly prayer-meeting held in Dr. Hutton's 
church on Washington Square. Among the most promi- 
nent members of that church at the time was Dr. THOMAS 
HASTINGS, whose pure life and deep and fervent piety 
shone as brightly from his benevolent face as from 
the beautiful words and music of those exquisite hymns 
by which he is now more generally remembered. 

The chief subject of thought and remark on that 
evening was " childhood's prayers " ; what they should 
be, who should teach them, and in what way. Dr. HAS- 
TINGS was one of the last to speak. Always impressive 
in his address, his manner became even more earnest 
than usual, and his voice took a deeper pathos, thrilling 
the heart of every listener, as he said in concluding: 

" A little child's prayer ! If possible let them be 
learned only from loving lips and a loving mother's heart 

7 (97; 



gS NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

Of all prayers, other than our Lord's, none is so dear to 
to me, even now, old as I am, as ' Now I lay me.' It 
was the prayer of my childhood, and still, to this day, I 
never * lay me down to sleep ' without again repeating 
those blessed words that I learned so long ago, at a ten- 
der, sainted mother's knee." 

No one that saw his tall, venerable form and silver 
locks, and heard his voice so full of emotion as he said 
these words, can ever forget the incident. 



REV. GARDINER SPRING, D.D. 

THE eminent Pastor of the Brick Church, in the 
city of New York, Rev. Gardiner Spring, D.D., 
was born in Newburyport, Mass., February 24, 1785, 
and died August 19, 1873, in the eighty-ninth year of his 
age, after a pastorate of sixty-three years in that church. 
Rev. James 0. Murray, D.D., in his discourse on the 
life and labors of Dr. SPRING, gives the following trib- 
ute to his closing hours : 

" Nothing, indeed, could be more beautiful and com- 
forting than the close of his life. His great and in- 
creasing weakness seemed to involve a degree of men- 
tal wandering. But it was all of a delightful tenor — 
some of it deeply touching, and some of it sublime. 
While yet in the full possession of his faculties, he 
spoke of the solemnity of dying — of going into the 
immediate presence of a holy GOD — dwelling on this 

thought as if his whole soul was penetrated through 

(99) 



,00 NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

and through by it. But he soon added : i I have one 
to appear for me there — my Advocate with the Father 
— JESUS CHRIST the righteous/ and then, for some 
time, in the most exalted strain of adoration, praised 
the glories of his Saviour, as if he had caught a glimpse 
of the King in His beauty, and it had loosed his tongue 
to sing of His love and His faithfulness. During his 
mental wandering, it was most touching to see how he 
imagined himself an aged clergyman far from home — 
longing to get there by Sunday — appealing to all about 
him to bring him on his way. But was not his wan- 
dering the true picture of his soul weary of absence 
from the heavenly home— longing to reach it, that he 
might keep his Sabbath in the upper Sanctuary ? Once, 
asking for hymns in which he delighted, one standing 
by began repeating, ' Rock of Ages.' His ear caught 
a mistake in the recital. He began the hymn himself, 
repeating it to the end, without hesitation or mistake. 
It is recorded of Dr. GUTHRIE, that during his last ill- 
ness he was never tired of hearing what he called the 
bairns* hymns. But it was a far more striking illustra- 
tion of how the mightiest disciple must enter the king- 
dom of God only as a little child, to overhear Dr. 
Spring, lying like an aged patriarch in the midst of his 



NO W I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. IO l 

household, in broken accents repeat the child's prayer 
learned years before at his mother's knee : ' Now I lay 
me down to sleep.' And still more striking was it to 
hear, at the close of a prayer which seemed to have 
taken him back again into the times of his childhood — 
' And make me a good boy, for Christ's sake. Amen.' " 



THE CHILD-MARTYR AT THE GATE. 

THE Pastor of St. John's Church (Lutheran), New 
York, among other incidents of his ministry, con- 
tributes the following to the pages of this volume : 

" Part of the wall of a burned house had fallen on a 
six or seven year old boy, and terribly mangled him. 
Living in the neighborhood, I was called in to see the 
stricken household. The little sufferer was in intense 
agony. Most of his ribs were broken, his breast-bone 
crushed, and one of his limbs fractured in two places. 
His breathing was short and difficult. He was evi- 
dently dying. I spoke a few words to him of JESUS, 
the ever-present and precious Friend of children, and 
then, with his mother and an older sister, knelt before 
his bed. Short and simple was our prayer. Holding 
the lad's hand in mine, and repeating the Children's 

Gospel : — ' Suffer the little children to come unto Me, 
(102) 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 



103 



and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of 
heaven/ he disengaged his hand from mine, and 
folded his. We rose from our knees. His mind began 
to wander. He called his mother. ' I'm sleepy, mam- 
ma, and want to say my prayers/ ' Do so, darling/ 
replied the sobbing mother. 



« < 



Now I lay me — down — to sleep, 

I pray Thee, Lord ! my soul — to keep ; — 

If I— should— d-ie— ' 

" He w T as beyond the river of death. On the wings of 
that simple prayer, that has borne so many of the lambs 
into the Good Shepherd's bosom, his soul had sped to 
Him that gave it. 

" I can see his little pale figure, with clasped hands 
and closed eyes, like a sleeping angel before me this 
moment, though more than nine years have passed 
since the incident occurred. 

" How that mother treasured that prayer ! No ser- 
mon, probably, ever made the impression on her heart 
that those few lines made, coming from the lips so soon 
to be speechless forever. 

" God bless the unknown hand that wrote these four 
beautiful lines ! " 



REV. HENRY MORRIS. 

a LONG and successful ministry has been closed 
by the recent death of one of the oldest pastors 
of the Reformed Church. The Christian Intelligencer 
gave its readers the following interesting facts in a 
memorial published in its columns : 

" Rev. Henry Morris died at Binghamton, N. Y., 
Oct. 17th, aged 78. He was born in Washington Co., 
N. Y., and was a graduate of Hamilton College and 
Princeton Seminary. His earlier ministry was spent in 
New England. He entered the Reformed Church in 
1843, serving at Union Village and Easton, N. Y., for 
five years each, and at Cuddebackville from 1855-62. 
He was in the service of the Christian Commission dur- 
ing the war, in North Carolina. He has since supplied 
pulpits at Port Jervis and various other places, and 
some years ago was declared emeritus. He removed 

' ( I0 4) 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP, 105 

to Binghamton in 1867. On the 10th of last May, he 
and his estimable wife celebrated their golden wedding 
His surviving descendants number nine children, eight 
een grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. 

" During his long ministry he was often engaged in 
revivals of religion, and his labors were greatly blessed. 
He was deeply interested in the progress of CHRIST'S 
Kingdom, and his continual prayer was for the spread 
of the Gospel over the whole world. He was a dili- 
gent student in classical, theological, and biblical litera- 
ture. The last few months he spent much of his time 
in examining and comparing the Revision of the New 
Testament. 

" He kept his heart young and fresh even down to 
old age. In his last sickness he spoke often of the 
1 perfect peace within/ and of his longing to see his 
Saviour. One evening as the accustomed hour of 
prayer drew near, and he felt the shadows gathering 
about him, he closed his weary eyes and repeated the 
familiar prayer of his childhood : 

" * Now I lay me down to sleep, 

I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep; 
If I should die before I wake, 



106 NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take ! 
And this I ask for Jesus' sake/ 

" And so he indeed entered into the kingdom of 
heaven as a little child." 



THE CHILD'S UNFINISHED PRAYER, 

a A (•OW I lay me" — say it, darling; 

9 ^r " Lay me," lisped the tiny lips 
Of my daughter, kneeling, bending 

O'er her folded finger-tips ; 
" Down to sleep," " To sleep," she murmured, 

And the curly head drooped low, 
" I pray the Lord," I gently added, 

" You can say it all, I know.* 

" Pray the Lord/' the words came faintly ; 

Fainter still, " My soul to keep ;" 
Then the weary head lay over, 

And the child was fast asleep ; 
But the dewy eyes half opened, 

When I clasped her to my breast, 

And the dear voice softly whispered, 

" Mamma, God knows all the rest." 

(107) 



10 8 NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

Safely to His care consigning, 

With a kiss I stole away ; 
So may I, in peace reclining, 

Breathe the words she tried to say, 
When life's moments fast are fleeting, 

And the shadows nearer creep — 
When this heart shall cease its beating, 

And I lay me down to sleep. 

Chorus — Thus in childhood's days of pleasure, 
With a tender voice to guide, 
First I learned the words to treasure, 
By a gentle mother's side. 



THE CHILD'S UNFINISHED PRAYER. 



Andante e con espressione. 



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(109) 



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" Pray the Lord," the words came faintly, 

Fainter still " my soul to keep ; " 
Then the weary head lay over, 

And the child was fast asleep ; 
But the dewy eyes half opened, 

When I clasped her to my breast ; 
And the dear voice softly whispered, 

" Mamma, God knows all the rest." 

Safely to His care consigning, 

With a kiss I stole away : 
So may I, in peace reclining, 

Breathe the words she tried to say ; 
When life's moments fast are fleeting, 

And the shadows nearer creep, 
When this heart shall cease its beating, 

And I lay me down to sleep. 



THE BISHOP'S PRAYER. 

a LADY, now gone to her rest, after a long and 
painful illness, related an incident communicated 
to her by a friend in a conversation on the subject of 
praying with the sick, the Children's Prayer and kin- 
dred topics. Her friend moved in the more elevated 
classes of society, having culture, wealth, and social 
position. Her brother was a man of the world, gay, 
thoughtless of religious things, and careless of the fu- 
ture. He was prostrated by sickness, which at length 
became alarming in view of the apparent approach of 
death. He consented to have a clergyman call on him, 
and the Bishop of that Diocese was invited to visit the 
dying man. He came accompanied with one of his col- 
leagues, and after some conversation, he knelt down to 
pray, using the form of the Prayer-Book, to which he 
added some extemporaneous petitions at the close, and 
then quietly stood a little while at the head of the bed 

watching the patient before they left. 

(in) 



112 NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

The room was still. The weary invalid, thinking the 
visitors had departed, turned to his sister, and said, 
" Pray for me ! " Unused to praying in the presence 
of others, and especially before such auditors, she hesi- 
tated, but yielded to his second request, "Pray for rne" 
and knelt down by his side, while with earnest and soft- 
ened tones she said : 

" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray Thee, Lord ! my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray Thee, Lord ! my soul to take. 
And this I ask for Jesus* sake. Amen." 

With eyes still closed, but earnestly, he made the 
request, " Say that again, sister," which she did. When 
the prayer was ended, he turned his head, and said : 

" There, that prayer does me more good than all the 
Bishop read out of the book ! " 

The clergymen quietly and reverently withdrew, and 
when the sister attempted to excuse her brothers ex- 
pression, not knowing that they were present, the good 
Bishop acknowledged that he had learned a lesson he 
would not forget, that sometimes the simplest utter- 
ances of the soul's desire are better and more comfort- 
ing than the loftiest language the tongue can speak. 



THE PEACEFUL SLEEPER. 

/^^-HRISTIAN experience presents itself to believ- 
^& ers in varied forms and under varying lights and 
shadows, and there are some who seem to have an im- 
pression that more or less of doubts, haltings, and fears 
are a necessary part of Christian life, and the evidence 
of acceptance at the throne of grace. They do not seem 
to understand the meaning of the inquiry — 

" Why should the children of a King 
Go mourning all their days ? " 

I knew one example of this kind, an earnest Chris- 
tian woman, who had a devoted and lovely daughter, 
who became herself a mother, and was suffering under 
the fatal touch of consumption. The final symptoms 
manifested, themselves in hasty succession. When the 
last hour came, her mother, who was overwhelmed with 

awful ideas of death and the judgment, and who seemed 
8 (113) 



U4 



NO W I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 



to think that doubts and fears are necessary evidences 
of grace, asked her how she felt about her soul. 

" Why, mother," she answered, " the way seems so 
clear to me, that the only trouble I now have is that I 
have no doubts or fears." 

The watching mother shook her head in silence. The 
daughter said : 

" Mother, clasp my hands together." 

The mother obeyed, and when the hands were clasped, 
and her eyes were closed, with countenance all radiant 
with faith and hope and love, she distinctly articulated 
with her last breath — 

" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take." 

She did not add — 

" This I ask for Jesus' sake ! " 

for she had fallen " asleep in Jesus.' 



LITTLE EYES AND LITTLE HANDS. 



h 



* ITTLE eyes, 
Like the shining blue above, 
Full of light and love, 

Full of glee ; 
Telling of a life within, 
In a world of sin, 

Born to you and me ! 
Will they see the golden way 
Leading up to day ? 
And the God to whom we pray, 
In the skies ? 

Little hands, 
In the long and weary strife 
Of a toiling life, 

Will they win ? 
Will they early learn to bless ? 
Rescue from distress ? 

Will they fear to sin ? 
For the true, the good, the right, 

(115) 



1 16 NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

Will they bravely fight ? 
Strew along the paths of night 
Golden sands ? 

Little feet, 
Entered on a thorny way ; 
Will it lead to day 

And renown ? 
As its rugged steeps are trod, 
Will they climb to God, 

And a seraph's crown ? 
Where the loving Saviour goes, 
Finding friends or foes, 
Will they follow till life's close, 
As is meet ? 

Little eyes, 

May they wear an angel's guise 

In the upper skies ! 

Little hands, 
May they, doing God's commands, 

Rest in fairer lands ! 

May these little feet 
These, dear Saviour, run to meet 
At Thy mercy-seat ; 
Ard with joy for sins forgiven, 
Press to heaven ! 



THE CHILDREN'S BED-TIME. 

THE clock strikes seven in the hall, 
The curfew of the children's day ; 
That calls each little pattering foot 

From dance and song and livelong play ; 
Their day that in her wider light 
Floats like a silver day-moon white, 
Nor in our darkness sinks to rest, 
But sets within a golden west. 

Ah ! tender hour that sends a drift 
Of children's kisses through the house, 

And cuckoo notes of sweet " Good-night," 
That thoughts of heaven and home arouse; 

And a soft stir to sense and heart, 

As when the bee and blossom part ; 

And little feet that patter slower, 

Like the last droppings of the shower. 

(ii7) 



Il8 NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

And in the children's rooms aloft 

What blossom shapes do gayly slip 
Their dainty sheaths, and rosy run 

From clasping hand and kissing lip, 
A naked sweetness to the eye — 
Blossom and babe and butterfly 
In witching one, so dear a sight ! 
An ecstasy of life and light. 

And, ah, what lovely witcheries 

Bestrew the floor ! an empty sock, 
By vanished dance and song left loose 
As dead birds' throat ; a tiny smock 
That, sure upon the meadow grew, 
And drank the heaven-sweet rains; a shoe 
Scarce bigger than an acorn cup ; 
Frocks that seem flowery meads cut up. 

Then lily-drest in angel-white 

To mother's knee they trooping come, 
The soft palms fold like kissing shells, 
And they and we go singing home — 
Their bright heads bowed and worshiping, 
As though some glory of the spring, 
Some daffodil that mocks the day, 
Should fold his golden palms and pray. 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 



II 9 



The gates of Paradise swing wide 

A moment's space in soft accord, 
And those dread angels, Life and Death, 

A moment vail the flaming sword, 
As o'er this weary world forlorn 
From Eden's secret heart is borne 
That breath of Paradise most fair, 
Which mothers call " The Children's Prayer. " 

Ah, deep pathetic mystery ! 

The world's great woe unconscious hung, 
A rain-drop on a blossom's lip ; 

White innocence that woos our wrong, 
And love divine that looks again, 
Unconscious of the cross and pain, 
From sweet child-eyes, and in that child 
Sad earth and heaven reconciled. 

Then kissed, on beds we lay them down, 

As fragrant-white as clover'd sod 
And all the upper floors grow hushed 

With children's sleep, and dews of God. 
And as our stars their beams do hide, 
The stars of twilight, opening wide, 
Take up the heavenly tale at even, 
And light us on to God and heaven. 



THE UNFINISHED PRAYER. 

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NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 



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THE CHILDREN'S ALTAR. 

THE author of the following lines, NATHANIEL P. 
WILLIS, wrote very little that is more gracefully 
and delicately expressed than his heart-harmony of 

SMILING IN SLEEP. 

. They tell me thou art come from a far world, 
Babe of my bosom ! That these little arms, 
Whose restlessness is like the spread of wings, 
Move with the memory of flights scarce o'er — 
That through these fringed lids we see the soul 
Steeped in the blue of its remembered home ; 
And while thou sleep'st, come messengers, they say 
Whispering to thee — and 'tis then I see 
Upon thy baby lips that smile of heaven f 

O God ! let these stay on — 

The angels who now visit her in dreams ! 
(122) 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 123 

And let the light and music which the world 
Borrows of heaven, and which her infant sense 
Hails with sweet recognition, be to her 
A voice to call her upward, and a light 
To lead her steps to Thee ! 

This sweet inspiration of tenderness and love, and 
this aspiration for the better life of our children, can- 
not be more surely realized than by leading them in 
their earliest years to bow reverently in prayer and 
thanksgiving to their Maker, and thus training them in 
the early dawnings of faith and trust to look up to 
Heaven for their blessings and their joys. 

The scientist may seek to overthrow the faith of be- 
lievers in prayer and its benedictions, by materialistic 
reasoning and affected insight into the unknown ; the 
atheist may scoff and blaspheme, and all the forces of 
philosophy and reason may seek to crush or ridicule 
the duty and the privilege and blessings of prayer ; but 
in the face of them all there stand the testimony and 
the experience of millions, some of them as learned, as 
distinguished, and as mighty as themselves. From a 
Newton and a Kepler, to the youngest infant in the 
divine faith, the testimony is the same. 

As a simple and single instance of the faith and spirit 



1 24 A r W I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

of a child, the following is rescued from the columns of 
the secular press. It was published as one of the inter- 
esting incidents which occurred during a severe storm 
in the month of February, 1881 : 

" In the sparsely settled village of Hardenburg, N. Y., 
lives a family named OSBORN, consisting of father, 
mother, and one daughter, a child of six years old, 
named Nellie. When the last heavy snow-storm fell, 
both Mr. and Mrs. OSBORN were lying sick, suddenly 
stricken down by fever, and Nellie was alone in the 
house with them. Living in an isolated place, far from 
neighbors, and being scantily supplied with the neces- 
saries of life at this severe and inclement season, with 
snow lying three or four feet deep everywhere, the 
situation may be imagined. Little Nellie did what she 
could to alleviate the sufferings of her parents in every 
way. It was bitterly cold ; their rude little house of- 
fered poor resistance to the wind, the bed-covering was 
not abundant, and the supply of fire-wood was finally 
exhausted. The child knew the fire must be kept up, 
and rather than let it go out she took her wooden toys 
— her treasured playthings — and cast them on the em- 
bers; then she kneeled by the couch of her sick mother 
and prayed — ' Please, dear Lord, send a big, good 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 



125 



man to help us/ Help came in the person of James 
McGAVITT, a lumberman of the mountains, who find- 
ing the family in this deplorable condition, exerted 
himself to afford prompt relief/' 

This is an illustration of a child's faith, and who 
would seek to destroy such a spirit, and the power of 
such a life, if it could be preserved in all the consistent 
beauty of years of manhood or womanhood, in the ma- 
turity of an intelligent and sustained experience. 

The lines of JAMES MONTGOMERY utter a truth 
which the devout of every age have known and felt, 
in the proportion in which they have had nearness 
to God : 

" Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, 
Uttered or unexpressed ; 
The motion of a hidden fire, 
That trembles in the breast. 

11 Prayer is the simplest form of speech 
That infant lips can try ; 
Prayer the sublimest strains that reach 
The Majesty on high/' 

Several forms of evening prayer for children, which 
are designed to give a more complete expression to 
the desires of the heart, are to be found in various 



126 NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

collections, and without being imitations, they breathe 
naturally the same spirit is " Now I lay me down to 
sleep." Two of them are herewith given as examples : 

" Ere on my bed my limbs I lay, 
O hear, great God, the words I say ; 
Preserve, I pray, my parents dear, 
In health and strength for many a year ; 
And still, O Lord, to me impart 
A gentle and a grateful heart, 
That after my last sleep, I may 
Awake to Thy eternal day." 



u I go to bed as to my grave, 
And pray to God my life to save ; 
But if I die before I wake, 
I pray to God my soul to take ; 
Sweet Jesus, now to Thee I cry, 
To grant me mercy ere I die — 
To grant me mercy, and send me grace, 
That heaven may be my dwelling-place." 

Children thus taught may in after-times be enabled 
to say with the inspired writer : 

" I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep ; for 
Thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety." — Ps. iv. 8. 



RENDERINGS OF THE PRAYER. 

THE question has been raised, and very properly, 
relative to the true reading of the prayer, in the 
second and fourth lines. By a very general custom 
these lines have been used and printed with the words 
" the Lord/* making a simple declaration of the act of 
prayer, and it is so given in the publications of the 
American Tract Society, and in the musical pub- 
lications of BlGLOW & MAIN. Other publishers and 
writers prefer the use of the pronoun in the invocatory 

form — 

" I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep. 5 ' 

A venerable correspondent, whose initials, "N. B. H.," 

will be found in the Table of Contents, in a critical note 

on this subject, remarks : " I doubt not my mother 

taught me this prayer say eighty years ago, with double 

e, for I have not seen it in print with the single e until 

within a few years past." 

(127) 



1 28 NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

A writer in the New York Evangelist (1879) con 
tended for the use of the pronoun in the following 
statement of the argument : 

"NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

" If that beautifully simple and simply beautiful child's 
prayer, ' Now I lay me down to sleep/ etc. — equally 
suited to the child and the philosopher, the simpleton 
and the sage — were just now for the first time pub- 
lished to the world, the Church would grow wild over 
its beauty, simplicity, and its universal adaptedness to 
the needs of every child of God, young and old, great 
and small. Familiar as are its words, yet few observe 
how incorrectly it is now understood, and how much of 
its force and strength is lost by reason of this incorrect 
rendering. Everybody says, ' I pray the Lord my soul 
to keep/ and ' I pray the Lord my soul to take/ The 
proper and stronger rendering is, and should be recog- 
nized and adopted, viz : 

" ' I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep/ 
and 

u ' I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take.* 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 



129 



To say ' I pray the Lord/ is simply a declaration, an 
announcement of a fact or act. To say ' I pray Thee, 
Lord/ is an act of worship. This little prayer is re- 
peated in the lone stillness of the night, when ' none 
but God can hear/ and is supposed to bring the soul 
in special and peculiar nearness to God. It is the day's 
last motion of the soul to God, and should imply a spe- 
cial personal approach to God. 

" It is all-important to the child, in its first inceptions 
and conceptions of the divine thought, that it should 
get a right start in the right direction. The child should 
be made to understand that God is as really a living, 
present God, as its mother, at whose knee it bends and 
bows, is a living, present mother, and that it should go 
to God in prayer with the same conviction of being 
heard and answered as it goes to its mother to ask for 
any favor or gift. Would any child throw its arms 
around a mother's neck and say, c I beg the mother 
to grant me this favor'? Would it not rather say, 
'I beg thee, mother'? These are little things, but 
' little drops of water make the mighty ocean.' So 
in forming early religious impressions. 

" I ask then that you publish these suggestions, and 
the prayer after this style : 
9 



I30 NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

" ' Now I lay me down to sleep, 

I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep ; 

If I should die before I wake, 

I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take,' 

and say if this rendering has not more of the elements 
of true prayer than the ordinary and universal ren- 
dering." 

Augusta Browne Garrett, whose essay, "The 
Christian Slumber-Song," is found in this volume, 
decides in favor of this form of the prayer. OLIVER 
DlTSON & Co., of Boston, in their musical publications 
also observe the same reading, and other authorities 
unite in its use. 

In collecting and reproducing the incidents and 
poems which fill this little volume, the compiler has 
adhered to the text of the various authors, and has not 
taken the responsibility of attempting any corrections 
of either selected or original narratives or poems. 

Without assuming any authority as an arbitrator in 
the question which is thus presented, he has adopted 
as the utterance of a devotional spirit, and the breath- 
ing of the heart in its appeal to the Divine Giver, the 
form of the invocation given at the opening of the vol- 
ume, thus : 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. i^ x 

i Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray Thee, Lord ! my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray Thee, Lord ! my soul to take." 

A MONOSYLLABIC PRAYER. 

The structure of the prayer has been noticed by sev- 
eral writers, in the fact that all the words, with a single 
exception, are monosyllables. This exception occurs 
in the third line — 

" If I should die before I wake." 

The almost universal use of this petition, and its en- 
deared associations for so many generations, seem to 
forbid the attempt to correct or to alter it in any way, 
yet a strict grammatical construction and interpreta- 
tion of the sentiment would sanction a change, and 
unify this feature of the whole verse. Thus — 

" If I should die and do not wake, 
I pray Thee, Lord ! my soul to take." 

THE ADDED LINE. 

There is apparently as much difficulty in tracing the 
origin of the fifth line, which has become a part of the 



32 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 



prayer, as in the discovery of the author of the prayer 
itself. It has been inserted in, and omitted from, the 
various selections and manuscripts as they have come to 
the hands of the compiler without change — its use be- 
ing dictated by the preferences of the writers. It is an 
appropriate and well-expressed utterance of faith in 
the Advocate and Friend, and simply formulates in 
metric numbers the spontaneous plea doubtless offered 
by countless lips before it was added in printed form, 
" For Jesus' sake. Amen." 



ANTIQUITY OF THE PRAYER. 

THE antiquity of the prayer is generally conceded, 
and HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH, in his "Story of 
the Hymns" (American Tract Society), gives it a period 
of about two centuries, and declares that it was " al- 
tered from Dr. WATTS," but gives no reference what- 
ever to justify it. The writer has seen nothing in the 
hymns or songs of this great author of the hymns of 
the Church to warrant this conclusion ; the only ground 
upon which it seems possible to base this supposition 
being the latter part of Psalm IV, which he paraphrases 
as follows : 

" Thus with my thoughts composed to peace, 
I'll give mine eyes to sleep ; 
Thy hand in safety keeps my days, 
And will my slumbers keep " 

(i33) 



134 NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP, 

The old Scotch version (Matthew Henry's edition, 
1790) reads: 

" I will both lay me down in peace, 
And quiet sleep will take, 
Because Thou only me to dwell 
In safety, Lord, dost make." 

MlLTON renders the text in these lines : 

" In peace at once will I 

Both lay me down and sleep ; 
For Thou alone dost keep 

Me safe, where'er I lie ; 

As in a rocky cell 

Thou mak'st me safely dwell." 

" The Children's Prayer" does not bear the impress 
of being a parody or an alteration, but is evidently a 
pure and simple utterance of its own thought — even 
though it might have been suggested by the text of 
the Psalm. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PRAYER. 

WHO is the author of this little prayer? On this 
point Rev. Dr. BULLARD, of the Massachusetts 
Sunday-school Society, says : 

" I really do not suppose there is any living person 
who can throw any light on the subject of who is the 
author of ( Now I lay me down to sleep ! ' For thirty 
years I have tried to keep my eyes and ears open to 
ascertain, and have not yet succeeded. " After such an 
endeavor by a man so favorably situated to ascertain 
the fact, who can hope to solve the mystery? 

So far as we know, its first appearance has not been 
traced further back than the " New England Primer/* 
We saw some years ago an article in which it was traced 
to this source, but whether it was said to have appeared 
in the first edition, or only in a subsequent one, we 

are not able to remember. The authorship has been 

(135) 



X 3 6 NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

ascribed to Dr. WATTS ; but this, so far as appears, is 
not based on any historical facts ; it has been rather 
supposed, as its simplicity and spirit naturally reminds 
one of WATTS. It is not found in any of his works. 

To know the author of this beautiful prayer would 
seem to be desirable. Yet that knowledge would only 
satisfy curiosity, without conferring any benefit. True, 
the author of it has won for himself an honor which one 
would hardly exchange for that of being author of 
" Paradise Lost," yet he enjoys it no less in heaven for 
its being unknown on earth. If the author is ever to 
be discovered in that happy place, the millions of little 
ones who uttered their first devotions in its language 
will find him out ; and it will be a happy thing for him 
that he will then be beyond the danger of being made 
vain by their praise ! 

Is there not a beautiful and significant providence 
in the fact that its authorship is on earth unknown? It 
is only the more purely a true and catholic form of de- 
votion as being entirely dissociated from its human 
source. It now belongs wholly to piety and the Church. 
It speaks now from the heart of the Church, and is the 
voice of her general life, and is not the utterance of any 
one of her organs. It seems to be the way and the 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. x 37 

habit of the life of Christianity to make human names 
and individualities disappear in her devotions. Hence 
her sublimest creeds, hymns, and prayers cannot be 
definitely traced to any precise time at which they 
originated, or to any particular individual from whom 
they proceeded. 

Who is the author of the Apostles' Creed ? Who of 
the Nicene Creed? Even the Athanasian Creed can- 
not be shown to have as its author the father whose 
name it bears. It has been attributed to St. Hilary 
and to Virgilius as well. Who is the author of the 
glorious old litanies? That sublime, ancient, angelic 
hymn, the Gloria in Excelsis, has also been attributed 
to various authors — to Telesphorus, to Symmachus, to 
St. Hilary. Not even the time of its origin, much less 
its author, is known. The same is true of the Te 
Deum. Some ascribe it to St. Ambrose, some to him 
and St. Augustine, and others to St. Hilary, and still 
others to Nicotius, Abonidius, and Sirebutus. The fact 
is, that no one knows when it originated, or who is its 
author. The same obscurity hangs over the origin and 
authorship of many others of the most excellent hymns 
used in the devotions of the Church. 

We lose nothing by this mystery. It aids rather in 



138 NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

making these devotional forms more sacred to us. The 
fact that the name and circumstances connected with 
their origin have disappeared, is an evidence rather of 
their truly catholic spirit and character. The piety of 
the Church produced them by the genius of its modest 
and retiring children, and in its devout love of them it 
thought not permanently of those gifted fellow-heirs of 
the common faith, who were not only willing, but 
anxious that their own humble names might disappear 
on earth to shine in heaven. 

On this principle we have always been averse to the 
practice of having the names of their authors appended 
to hymns in the hymn-books of the Church. These 
forms of devotion which furnish true pious utterances 
to our hearts are to us truer and better in the sweet 
forgetfulness of all human instrumentality in their pro- 
duction. The mystery which hangs around the Gloria 
in Excelsis and Te Deum makes them seem to us as if 
they had come from heaven, and had only been caught 
up in some glorious hour of sublime sanctuary jubilee 
by " the glorious company of the apostles, the goodly 
fellowship of the prophets, the noble army of martyrs, 
and the holy Church throughout the world." 

In like manner this little prayer has no one to claim 



NOW J LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. i^ 

it. It belongs to mothers and the children. In using 
it there is nothing to think of but its own blessed 
sense. It comes to the couch of infancy like an angel 
visit, giving no account of itself other than in the bless- 
ing it imparts to the trusting heart of childhood 

However, if any one knows where it came from, let 
him tell it for the satisfaction of the curious. If not, it 
shall be all the more dear and interesting to us for the 
mystery that hides its source. Like the " Letters of 
Junius," or the Ossianic poems of McPherson, wise men 
shall study more carefully its contents, with the hope 
of finding reflected in it some features of the great stat 
in umbra. Meanwhile, little children may regard it, as 
they do the beautiful things on their Christmas-tree, as 
a gift presented by the unseen hand of the CHRIST 
CHILD Himself. 



THE CATHOLICITY OF THE PRAYER. 

aS no man claims its authorship, so no sect or 
branch of Christendom can claim it as exclusively 
suited to its own peculiar religious views and ideas of 
devotion. No one has ever heard, from any quarter, 
that it has been charged with heterodoxy. True, in its 
original form, as including only four lines, it has been 
thought defective because it does not express formally 
that prayer must be offered up through the mediation 
of JESUS Christ, and hence a final line has been added, 
at a time and by a hand unknown. Thus : 

"And this I ask for Jesus' sake. ,, 

But may not the child be taught to address the whole 

prayer directly to Christ under the name " Lord," under 

which name He is frequently mentioned in Scripture ? 
(140) 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 141 

The popularity of the prayer evidences its catholicity. 
It has been found so well adapted to its need, that it is 
almost universally in use ; and is, in the English tongue, 
the classic infant prayer. It is safe to say, that 
ever since its existence millions of children in every 
generation have been taught to use it ; and there is not 
an evening that settles down around the habitations of 
men when this prayer is not lisped from a countless 
number of infant lips. 

Its use is not confined to any class or condition of 
society. It is the prayer of the rich and of the poor, 
of the learned and unlearned, and of the high and the 
lowly. It ascends from huts and hovels, from cottages 
and farm-houses, from palatial city residences and 
princely country villas. 

It is not strange, then, but altogether natural, that 
this little prayer of childhood should have been found 
to many so dear and precious, even when the almond 
blossoms began to cover their heads with their crown of 
soft white glory. It is said that John QuiNCY Adams 
and also Bishop HEDDING, of the Methodist Church, 
were in the habit of repeating this prayer every night 
from the time it was taught to them by their mothers 
to the end of their lives. The same is true of thou- 



142 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 



sands, who find the words and spirit of this prayei 
altogether adapted to their devout use in commending 
themselves into the hands of God just before closing 
their eyes in nightly sleep. 

There have also been instances of notoriously wicked 
men, who, when danger threatened them on sea or land, 
anxious to pray, but unable to utter anything, began 
with the words imbedded in their memory by a mother's 
pious care, teaching them " Now I lay me down to 
sleep." An instance is well authenticated of a man 
who had been piously trained by his mother, but who 
afterward boldly affected to be an atheist. Overtaken 
by a fierce thunder-storm, when on a journey on horse- 
back, he rode hastily for shelter under a tree which was 
soon after struck by lightning ; fearfully alarmed, and 
scarcely knowing whether he were dead or alive, he 
commenced crying out, " Now I lay me down to sleep." 

Such incidents reveal how shallow a thing infidelity 
is. It may coil itself like a deceitful serpent around 
the mind, and be a presence there, cold to the sense of 
the victim and repulsive to the one who beholds it, but 
it fails in most cases to reach the heart, which always 
gives a true signal ; and especially if a mother's care 
and love have once filled that heart with fragrant re- 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. j^ 

ligious memories, it will carry its latent riches of rev- 
erence for sacred things even when the outward life has 
been deformed and disfigured by sin. No doubt this 
little prayer, instilled into the heart in innocent child- 
hood, has been in thousands of cases a "seed that re- 
mained " when mind and life had been corrupted and 
spoiled by the rude, unbelieving, and sinful ways of the 
world. The same feeling which caused the dying lieu- 
tenant in a hospital to exclaim, " God of my mother, 
hear me!" will cause many a prodigal, who may other- 
wise cast off all restraints and habits of piety, to call to 
mind, as he lies down for the night, this beautiful 
prayer so often repeated after his mother's voice in 
earlier, purer, and better days. 

A mother's influence is proverbial. Out of the quiet, 
inner circle of home life she moulds, and afterward by 
her own spirit in them, still rules kings and princes, the 
great, the wise, the speculative men of the world. 
Even King Lemuel will not forget, amid the splendors 
of the throne, the words " that his mother taught him." 
Let philosophers go on with their teaching, the mother's 
influence shall not be far behind them. If her lessons 
do not even outreach their wisdom, they will surely 
mingle with them, and sanctify them to their true 



HA 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 



end and use. Let not the day of small things be 
despised, 

11 For little things, 
On little wings, 
Bear little souls to heaven ! " 

Sooner or later you must " lie down to sleep," when 
this prayer will be all your soul can take — all that will 
avail of your rank, or wealth, or fame, whatsoever you 
most prize in this world, which is but the shadow of 
eternity. We shall soon pass the 

" Green threshold of our common graves " ; 

but the little prayer, the first, may be, that we took 
upon our childish lips, shall follow us as we sail out 
under the solemn arches of the " River of Death " — fol- 
lows us as a sweet, faint, tender air from the shores, and 
when we shall cast anchor — 

" The Lord our soul shall take." 



THE PICTURED PRAYER. 

WHILE Poetry, Song, and Legend have made 
their contributions to the history of the quar- 
tette lines, the circle is not complete without the aid of 
the artist. On this theme, the Professor of Languages 
in Franklin and Marshall College wrote for the German 
Reformed Messenger (1865), as follows : 

THE CHILD'S PRAYER. 

" Now I lay me down to sleep." This little poem 

belongs to the golden age of our human life. " Heaven 

lies about us in our infancy." It is all made up of 

monosyllables, one word excepted, easy to be lisped, 

and we had mastered it in our memories, we all know, 

long before we had the letters of the alphabet, from the 

fond dictation of our mothers, and our repeating it after 

her every night, without a miss, as we kneeled devo- 

tionally at her knee. When this happy repeating of it 
7 (145) 



I46 NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

first began we cannot now go back so far in our mem- 
ories as to ascertain, but it now remains associated with 
the Lord's Prayer, of which it was the forerunner ; and 
after we had committed both of them, before this lesser 
one of human origin, we always repeated first the di- 
vine one. The great composer of it is unknown, but 
he has his reward. We never find it printed or pub- 
lished on a card, in red or golden letters, ornamented 
in handsome style, as are often the Lord's Prayer, and 
the Creed, and the Ten Commandments, to attract the 
eyes of the young, and impress them on their mem- 
ories. It is forever written on the tables of our hearts, 
and it cannot be effaced. 

But though never published by itself, nor with a com- 
mentary, it is not without its legends and incidents, 
showing the deep hold it has taken on the religious 
feelings of our nature ; the most touching one of which, 
we think, is that of the suffering little boy, who, when 
the night of death was creeping over him, and his eyes 
could no longer distinguish objects, supposed it was 
the natural night coming on, and, to compose himself 
to sleep, he commenced saying his little prayer ; but 
ere he had reached the close of the last line, " I pray 
the Lord my soul ," his tongue refused to utter 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 



1 47 



and he fell asleep in Jesus. " Blessed sleep, from which 
none ever wakes to weep." 

No wonder that the artist, too, has sometimes seized 
upon it, making the little repeater of it the subject of 
his pencil. Before us now we have a picture of this 
description, which was painted by Holfeld, and en- 
graved by the distinguished artist, A. B. Walter. The 
little worshiper, however, is not represented at his 
mother's knee. The clothes having been turned down, 
and the pillow yet uncrushed, the child in dishabille is 
kneeling on its soft mattress, with its hands folded and 
its eyes upraised in faith, in the act of repeating this 
little prayer. It is all alone, but the room is lighted 
up. It is not repeating it after another, but by itself 
in sincere devotion, for its own conscience' sake. It 
could not have slept otherwise. Presently, when it has 
laid its little hand upon its pillow, its mother will come 
in and tuck the clothes snugly around it, and after bid- 
ding it good-night, with a parting kiss, she will turn off 
the light and leave the room, and then how soundly 
and sweetly will it sleep all the hours, knowing that 
God's holy care is ever around it ! 

The little child is represented not as a cherub, nor 
even as an angel without wings. Such an idealistic 



I 4 8 NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP, 

being might have looked more beautiful, but how much 
farther would it have been removed from our human 
sympathies ! It is a bona fide little child, of healthful 
form and expressive countenance ; such, indeed, as 
might be met with in noble halls, but just as often in 
lowly cottages. It is the sincere act of devotion in 
which it is engaged, and the hallowed associations of 
the prayer itself in the memories of all, that throw 
around the picture its charm, and make it truly poet- 
ical. While giving pleasure to the most cultivated and 
refined sensibilities, it cannot fail coming home also to 
the hearts of the common people. It would grace any 
parlor, it is true ; but its most proper place, we fancy, is 
in the nursery, over the children's bed — the last thing 
to be seen by them at night, and the first thing to meet 
their eyes in the morning. In a quiet way such things 
of art and beauty have an educational force, improving 
the taste and social and religious feelings ; and happier 
always will be the family, we think, which will fall early 
under their refining and hallowing influences. 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

" -4 I^OW I lay me down to sleep, 
• ^r And the blue eyes dark and deep 
Let their snowy curtains down, 
Edged with fringes golden brown ; 
All day long, the angels fair, 
IVe been watching over there ; 
Heaven's not far, 'tis just in sight, 
Now they're calling me, good-night ; 
Kiss me, mother, do not weep, 
Now I lay me down to sleep." 

Chorus — Over there, just over there, 

I shall say my morning prayer; 
Kiss me, mother, do not weep, 
Now I lay me down to sleep. 

Tangled ringlets, all smooth now, 
Looped back from the waxen brow, 
Little dimpled hands so white, 
Clasped together cold to-night ; 

(149) 



I JO NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

Where the mossy, daisied sod 
Brought sweet messages from God, 
Two pale lips with kisses pressed, 
There we left her to her rest, 
And the dews of evening weep 
Where we laid her down to sleep. 

Chorus — Over there, just over there ; 

List ! the angels' morning prayer, 
Lisping low, though fancy creep, 
"Now I lay me down to sleep." 



TRIBUTE OF AN UNKNOWN MINER, 

"NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP." 

NEAR the camp-fire's flickering light, 
In my blanket bed I lie, 
Gazing through the shades of night 

At the twinkling stars on high ; 
O'er me spirits in the air 

Silent vigils seem to keep, 
As I breathe my childhood's prayer, 
" Now I lay me down to sleep." 

Sadly sighs the whip-poor-will 

In the boughs of yonder tree ; 
Laughingly the dancing rill 

Swells the midnight melody ; 
Foemen may be lurking near, 

In the canon dark and deep, 

Low I breathe in Jesus' ear, 

" I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep." 

(151) 



152 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

'Mid those stars a face I. see, 

One the Saviour called away, — 
Mother who in infancy 

Taught my baby lips to pray ; 
Her sweet spirit hovers near, 

In this lonely mountain brake. 
Take me to her, Saviour dear, 

" If I should die before I wake." 

Fainter glows the flickering light, 

As each ember slowly dies ; 
Plaintively the birds of night 

Fill the air with saddening cries ; 
Over me they seem to cry, 

" You may nevermore awake," 
Low I lisp, " If I should die, 

I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take." 



"NOW I LAY ME." 



NOW I 
I pr 



lay me down to sleep, 
pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take." 



Very many of our readers were taught at the 
cradle to repeat this prayer every night. Millions 
of children, in our country, and other English-speaking 
countries, have used these lines as a prayer for 
generations past. This prayer is now loved next to 
the Lord's Prayer. Many beautiful and touching 
stories have been told and written about it. Good 
and learned men and women are reported as having 
used it through all their lives. Sometimes it has been 
uttered in the wanderings of the mind under disease 
and old age, and by those passing away by death. 

Little children have repeated it not only when closing 

(153) 






154 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 



their eyes in sleep, but also when mistaking the 
dimness of sight, as death came near, for the shadow 
of night. 

Some one has added to the little prayer a fifth line, 
which is sometimes printed with it for those who desire 
it. The words are : 

"And this I ask for Jesus' sake." 

Lately some one has thought a change had been made, 
by mistake, in the first and third lines ; so that now, 
instead of saying, " I pray the Lord," we should say, 
" I pray Thee, Lord." The latter form, it is said, must 
have been the original form. This claim may possibly 
be correct, as it puts the language in the shape of a 
more direct address to God. 

It is a singular fact that the authorship of this prayer 
is not known. Many inquiries have been made, but no 
satisfactory answer has yet come to light. It seems, 
however, to have been produced in America, probably 
in the Eastern States. Some have thought that it first 
appeared in the " New England Primer," a little book 
that not a few old folks still remember as containing 
those couplets on the alphabet, beginning thus : 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 



155 



" In Adam's fall, 
We sinned all." 

One writer hints that perhaps it was written by Mrs. 
Anne Bradstreet, of Boston, the earliest female 
author in America, who died a little more than two 
hundred years ago. 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

aS " now I lay me down to sleep," 
May angel guards above me keep, 
Through all the silent hours of night, 
Their watch and ward till morning light. 
Dim evening shades around me creep, 
As " now I lay me down to sleep." 

" I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep," 
The while I wake or while I sleep ; 
And while I work and while I play, 
Give me Thy grace that day by day, 
Thy love may in my heart grow deep — 

" I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep." 

" If I should die before I wake ; " 

If I this night the world forsake, 

And leave the friends I hold most dear ; 

Leave all that I so value here, 

And if Thy call my slumbers break — 

" If I should die before I wake : — 
(156) 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

" I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take ; " 
I pray that Thou wouldst for me make 
Close at Thy feet a lowly place, 
Where I may e'er behold Thy face, 
And this I ask for Thy dear sake — 

"I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take." 

While bending at my mother's knee, 
This little prayer she taught to me — 
" Now (as) I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take." 



157 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 



EUGENE H. PULLEN. 

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u 'iV f OW I lay me down to sleep, 
• ^r I pray the Lord my soul to keep," 
Was my childhood's early pray'r, 
Taught by mother's love and care ; 
Many years since then have fled, 
Mother slumbers with the dead, 
Yet methinks I see her now, 
With love-lit eyes and holy brow, 
As, kneeling by her side to pray, 
She gently taught me how to say, 

" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep." 

Oh, could the faith of childhood's days, 

Oh, could its little hymns of praise, 

Oh, could its simple, joyous trust, 

Be recreated from the dust 

That lies around a wasted life, 

The fruit of many a bitter strife ; 
(160) 



NO W I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 161 

Oh, then at night in pray'r I'd bend, 
And call my God, my Father, Friend, 
And pray with childlike faith once more, 
The prayer my mother taught of yore, 
" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep." 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

)SEE in The Churchman of May 3 1 that Mr. CHARLES 
MARSEILLES, journalist, wishes information as to 
whether JOHN QuiNCY Adams was in the habit of say- 
ing every night on retiring the " beautiful prayer " be- 
ginning "Now I lay me down to sleep." I do not 
remember ever to have seen the incident in print in 
connection with this distinguished statesman and Chris- 
tian ; but I remember the incident, because it was deeply 
impressed on my mind by Mr. Adams himself. 

I was living in Washington from the last part of 1846 
to the close of 1848. Mr. Adams had been a member 
of the House for fourteen or sixteen years, perhaps. 
In 1847 I became well acquainted with him, and fre- 
quently met with him and talked with him in the House 
of Representatives. I remember one morning, in 1847, 
that I met him before the House was called to order. 
He was very feeble. It was not long before the subject 
of religion was introduced by Mr. Adams. Among 

other things, I remember his saying : " There are two 
(162) 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 163 

prayers I love to say — the first is the Lord's Prayer, 
and because the Lord taught it ; and the other is what 
seems to be a child's prayer, i Now I lay me down to 
sleep,' etc., and I love to say this because it suits me. 
And," he added, " I love this prayer so much that I 
have been repeating it every night for very many years 
past, and I say it yet, and I expect to say it my last 
night on earth if I am conscious. But," said he, " I 
have added a few words to the prayer so as to express 
my trust in Christ, and also to acknowledge what I ask 
for I ask as a favor, and not because I deserve it. This 
is it," said he, and then he repeated it as he was in Jthe 
habit of saying it : 

Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take, 
For Jesus sake. Amen. 

This was in 1847. He died in 1848 while I was liv- 
ing in Washington, and I have no doubt but that the 
" child's prayer that just suited" him was reverently 
repeated every night until he died. 

I have never before this given the incident for pub- 



164 NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

lication, but I have often spoken of it to my friends ; 
and I now very gladly give it as the information desired 
by your correspondent. 



To the Editor of The Churchman : 

In answer to the inquiry made in your last issue 
respecting the use by JOHN QuiNCY ADAMS, nightly to 
his dying day, of the sweet little evening prayer begin- 
ning " Now I lay me down to sleep/' I desire to say 
that I have preserved from boyhood several fugitive 
articles giving a collection of interesting facts about 
this little prayer which has been used by thousands in 
their evening devotions. I find in these articles three 
references to its use by President Adams. One is as 
follows : " Tower's Pictorial Reader mentions as a fact 
related of John QuiNCY Adams that during his long life 
he never retired to bed without repeating this prayer of 
his childhood." Then some lines of a forgotten poet 
are quoted having a distinct reference to this devout 
practice of President Adams : 

The statesman gray, 
His massive brow all hung with laurel leaves, 
Forgets his honors while his memory weaves 



NO W I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 165 

A picture of that home, 'mid woods and streams, 
Where hoary mountains caught the sun's first beams — 
And clasping his great hands — a child once more — 
Upon his breast, forgetting life's long war — 
Thus hear him pray : 
" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take." 

May I be permitted to suggest to the journalist who 
makes the inquiry in your columns that he interview a 
number of typical modern politicians — our so-called 
statesmen — as to their devotional habits, for the ad- 
miration of future generations. It might be edifying 
even to us to know how far public affairs are in the 
hands of prayerful men. 



The interesting fact having been made public that 
the late President of the United States, JOHN QuiNCY 
Adams, made use of the children's prayer to his latest 
days, an inquiry was made by CHARLES MARSEILLES, 
Esq., Exeter, N. H., relative thereto. The following 
letter is the reply of Rev. Dr. GEORGE E. ELLIS : 



1 66 NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

Boston, June 20, 1890. 
My DEAR Sir : In answer to your question I would 
inform you that if you will look at the " Memoirs of 
John Quincy Adams," vol. xii., pages 108-9, y° u w ^l 
note that he mentions me as one of a delegation of the 
Massachusetts Historical Society attending with him, 
November, 1844, an annual commemorative meeting of 
the New York Historical Society. We lodged at 
Bunker's Mansion House. It was my privilege, as he 
felt the infirmities of seventy-eight years, to do him 
some little personal services. At bed-time, after some 
lively and interesting talk, he would say something as 
follows : " It is time to go to sleep, and I must say my 
every-night prayer, which my mother taught me, as I 
have said it every night in Europe and America." 
Which he did, repeating distinctly the four lines you 
have written : 

" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take." 



The compend of experiences associated with the 
time-honored form of prayer, " Now I lay me down 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. x 6y 

to sleep," is full of rich and varied lessons. The 
prayer is in itself the natural utterance of human senti- 
ment for all ages, classes, and conditions of men, while 
the additions, paraphrases, and versifications repeated 
are the historic attestation of its universal adaptation. 
It has been said of the Lord's Prayer, that it is so 
catholic in sentiment and expression, that not only 
Christians of every persuasion, and Hebrews or Mo- 
hammedans of the present day, but even Greeks and 
Romans of Christ's day, — all men, whatever their 
religious faith, might join in it. It is, however, so 
wide in extension and so deep in comprehension, that 
only the profoundest and broadest intellects can grasp 
its thought ; while the petition of the evening bedside 
is so limited in scope, as well as simple in expression, 
that the child's mind takes in its thoughts. Yet more : 
when in the decay of the bodily powers the half-waking 
utterance makes " sleep the brother of death," it is just 
what the dying child, soldier, or patriarch naturally 
lisps when falling asleep in JESUS. The several addi- 
tions made to it give a historic attestation of its 
universal acceptance. It is taught now, as a century 
ago, to American children by parents reared in every 
communion speaking the English language ; as the 



l68 NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

writer has in this country and in Great Britain per- 
sonally observed. The added line, 

" And this I ask for Jesus' sake," 

is the expression of a doctrinal sentiment suggested to 
Christian parents. Varied other additions have been 
made evidently from individual sentiment, as seen 
in the stanza heard from English children especially 
trained : 

" God made the sky that looks so blue ; 
God made the grass so green ; 
God made the flowers that smell so sweet, 
In pretty colors seen." 

His varied life, having scarcely a parallel in American 
or European history, adds emphasis to the enduring 
power of faithful maternal instruction ; lasting and 
ruling, because the human spirit is made for truth by 
its Creator and Redeemer. Born in 1767, trained by 
his devoted mother amid the trying times that called 
his father from home, the child was left to the mother's 
sole moulding. The expression of Hon. John QuiNCY 
Adams in his old age was this : That he never ceased 
to feel the pressure of his mother's hand on his head as 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. x fa 

he knelt at her knee to repeat the prayer, whose repeti- 
tion on retiring at night he could never neglect. 

The testimony of such a man is a distinguished illus- 
tration of the power of a mother's teaching. 



Charles Marseilles submits the following query : 
" In the old ' New England Primer ' is the following 
simple and beautiful prayer : 

' Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take/ 

Somewhere, I do not remember where, I have seen 
that JOHN QuiNCY Adams, 'the Old Man Eloquent/ 
he who was President of the United States, nightly to 
his dying day (he lived to the age of nearly eighty-one 
years) repeated this simple prayer on retiring. I very 
much desire to know if such was the fact, and if so, 
where and in what it is chronicled in print. Cannot 
you, Mr. Editor, or some of your multitude of readers, 
kindly inform me, or suggest to me where and of whom 
I might possibly learn ? " 



170 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 



We shall have to refer our correspondent's query to 
our multitude of readers. It would he interesting if 
at the same time they could solve the problem of its 
authorship, although it is more than probable that that 
is impossible. BARTLETT ascribes the quatrain to the 
" New England Primer/' It may be found there, 
indeed, credited to one " Mr. Rogers the martyr, 
whose wife and ten small children are so well known," 
but it is far older than the " Primer " or Mr. Rogers. 
Rev. Thomas Hastings, in the " Mother's Nursery 
Songs" (1848), ascribes it to WATTS; but, again, it is 
older than Watts, and, furthermore, the nearest that 
WATTS came to it is in the following : 

" 1 lay my body down to sleep, 
Let angels guard my head ; 
And through the hours of darkness keep 
Their watch around my bed. 

" With cheerful heart I close my eyes, 
Since Thou wilt not remove ; 
And in the morning let me rise 
Rejoicing in Thy love." 

In mediaeval times it appears to have been known as 
the White Paternoster, being so styled in the " En- 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP, 



171 



chiridion Papae Leonis, MCLX." Ady's " Candle in 
the Dark/' 1655, quotes it in the following form : 

" Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John 
Bless the bed that I lye on, 
And blessed Guardian Angel, keep 
Me safe from danger while I sleep. 

" I lay me down to rest me 
And pray the Lord to bless me ; 
If I should sleep, no more to wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take." 

Chaucer, in his " Night Spell," alludes to it: 

"Lord Jhesu Crist and Seynte Benedyht 
Blesse this hous from every wikked wight, 
Fro nyghtes verray, the white Patre nostre 
When wonestow now, Seynte Petre's soster." 

A more modern variant runs as follows : 

" Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John ! 
God bless the bed that I lie on ! 
Four corners to my bed, 
Four angels round me spread ! 
One at the foot and one at the head, 



172 NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

And two to keep 

My soul asleep ! 
And should I die before I wake, 
I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take 
For my Redeemer, Jesus' sake ! " 

It is evident that Protestantism gradually rejected t'he 
saints and angels from the invocation, and remodelled 
the lines into the form that is now familiar to us. In 
the original form, or something like it, the White 
Paternoster occurs in the popular hymnology of every 
country. Thus QuENOT, " Statistique de la Charente," 
gives it as follows : 

" Dieu l'a fait je la dit, 
J'ai trouve quatre anges couches a mon lit 
Et le bon Dieu au milieu. 
De quoi puisje avoir peur ; 
Le bon Dieu est mon pere, 
La Vierge ma mere, 
Les Saints mes freres, 
Les Saintes mes soeurs, 
Le bon Dieu m'a dit 
Leve-toi, couche-toi 
Ne crains rien ; le feu l'orage et la tempete, 
Ne peuvent rien contre toi ; 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 173 

Saint Jean, Saint Marc, Saint Luc et Saint Matthieu 

Qui met les ames en repos 
Mettez-y la mienne si Dieu le veut." 

In the Loire : 

" Jesus m'endort, 
Si je trepasse, mande mon corps, 
Si je trepasse, mande mon ame, 
Si je vie, mande mon esprit." 

In Sardinia : 

il Anghelu de Deo, 
Custodia meo ! 
Custa nott — illuminame, 
Guarda e defende a me 
Ca eo mi incommando a Tie." 

And other forms may be found in other parts of France 
and Italy, in Germany, and elsewhere. 



VARIATIONS OF ENGLISH HOMES. 

THE following variations are selected from " Ob- 
servations on the Popular Antiquities of Great 
Britain, " by JOHN BRAND, M.A. Arranged, revised, 
and greatly enlarged by Sir Henry Ellis, K.H.F.R.S., 
Sec. S. A., etc., Librarian of the British Museum. 
Vol. III. 

" The following charm and prayer is used at this day 
in Westmoreland. It is taught by mothers, as well as 
nurses, to young children ; and is repeated by them on 
retiring to rest : 

" Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
God bless the bed that I lie on ; 
If anything appear to me, 
Sweet Christ, arise and comfort me." 



" Four corners to this bed, 
Six angels round me spread ; 
Two to pray, two to wake, 
Two to guard me till daybreak ; 

(i74) 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

And blessed guardian angels keep 
Me safe from danger while I sleep." 



" I lay me down upon my side, 
And pray the Lord to be my guide ; 
And if I die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take." 



u Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
Bless the bed that I lie on ; 
All the four corners round about, 
When I get in, — when I get out" 



175 



"NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP." 

a WIDOW sat watching her fair-haired boy 
One weary, winter day, 
As burning with fever and racked with pain 

The little sufferer lay ; 
But the day went out and the night came down, 

The pain had passed away ; 
And the child looked up, and the mother bent down 
To hear what he should say. 

" Kiss me, mother, let me go, 
Where is no more pain nor woe ; 
Kiss me, mother ; do not weep — 
* Now I lay me down to sleep/ 

"O mother! the angels stood round my bed, 

All day they sang to me ; 
And sweetly they told me of that bright land 

That lies beyond the sea ; 

And they told me too of a river pure 

Whose waters I shall drink, 
(176) 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

And it flows so still through a beautiful vale ; 
I'm near it now, I think. 

Kiss me, mother, let me go, 
Where is no more pain nor woe ; 
Kiss me, mother ; do not weep — 
' Now I lay me down to sleep/ 

11 And Annie, my sister, that died, you know, 
Just four long years ago ; 
I thought she came with them and stood just here, 

In robes as white as snow ; 
And she sang of Christ and of heaven so bright 

That I forgot my pain ; 
And I think to-night, as you watch by my side, 
That she will come again. 

Kiss me, mother, let me go, 
Where is no more pain nor woe ; 
Kiss me, mother ; do not weep — 
* Now I lay me down to sleep.' " 



177 



EVENTIDE. 

" <4 (•OW I lay me down to sleep" — 
• ^r Long and hard has been the day ; 
I have come a weary way 
Since life's morning, but at last 
Night is falling sweet and fast — 

" Now I lay me down to sleep." 

" I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep "— 
I have tried — alas ! in vain — 
From the world's dark soil and stain 
Free to keep it. Weak and worn, 
With my strength all overborne, 

" I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep." 

" If I should die before I wake " — 

Treasures have slipped so fast away 

From my keeping day by day, 

And I shrink from coming ill ; 

This thought holdeth joy's glad thrill — 

" If I should die before I wake." 
(178) 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

"I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take" — 
From all the sorrow it hath known, 
Sin and loss, and tear and moan, 
To the dear ones gone before, 
To Thy presence evermore, 

" I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take." 

" This I ask for Jesus' sake " — 

Name alone that can prevail, 

Anchor-hold within the veil ! 

Every other plea hath flown ; 

Worth or merit claim I none ; 
u This I ask for Jesus' sake." 



179 



TEACH THE LITTLE ONES TO PRAY. 

HE was a strong, healthy man, in the very prime of 
his years. He had been nurtured by a Christian 
mother, who had gone to her rest and reward long ago. 
The man was not a bad man in any outrageous way, 
but he was a worldly man whose thoughts and affec- 
tions and hopes did not extend beyond this life. For 
years he had not entered a church, unless to attend a 
funeral. 

Suddenly, without a moment's warning, he was 
stricken down. For a few days there seemed no danger, 
and then an unexpected change for the worse revealed 
to the experienced eye of the attending physician the 
fact that his patient was beyond all medical aid. He 
was a Christian physician, and realized that he had a 
duty to perform to the souls as well as to the bodies of 
his patients, so he gently told the already dying man 
that his days were numbered. 

At first he was incredulous. He, who had never 
(180) 



NO W I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. \ 8 1 

known a day's illness until that very week, dying ! It 
could not possibly be! 

But already a mortal weakness was stealing over him, 
and he began to realize that his physician had spoken 
truly. And then the lessons learned at his mother's knee 
— and forgotten, alas ! for so many years — came back to 
his startled soul. There was no time to think of his 
worldly affairs now. For once they took their true im- 
portance in his estimation. Turning his face to the 
wall he repeated aloud the prayer his mother taught 
him long years before, and which perhaps he had never 
repeated since — that blessed prayer Christ Himself 
taught His disciples, and which has risen from the 
hearts of millions of His followers down through the 
ages since, and which will continue to voice the aspira- 
tions of His children to the end of time: 

"Our Father which art in heaven." 

After a little silence he again spoke, but faintly and 
with failing utterance. The physician leaned over him 
to listen. Slowly he said that other prayer that the 
lips of generations of children have hallowed : 

" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep." 



182 NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

He completed the prayer and it was his last utter- 
ance. The shadows of the night of death were all 
around him, and he sank into the sleep that knows no 
waking. Let us hope that a gracious Lord answered 
his petition, 

" If I should die before I wake, 
I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take ; 
And this I ask for Jesus' sake," 

and forgave him, even at his last hour, as He did the 
penitent on the cross. 

Mothers, whose little ones gather around you in the 
evening clad in pure white robes for the slumbers of the 
night, teach them to clasp their little hands and with 
reverently closed eyes to say these same prayers. It 
may be that in coming years, when your eyes are closed 
forever and your hands clasped over pulseless breasts, 
the memory of these prayers may be the only link bind- 
ing back your child to religion and God and heaven. 

But let us also hope and pray that the habit thus 
early formed will never be forgotten, and that the 
children so trained will live in constant communion 
with Him who hears and answers prayer. 



THE LITTLE PRAYER. 

a LITTLE maiden knelt one night — 
A little maiden all in white — 
She knelt and said her simple prayer, 
Asking the dear Lord's tender care, 
That while her eyes were sealed in sleep, 
He would her soul and body keep. 

A stranger sat within the home, 
A man whose wont it was to roam, 
Who had no God, no church, no heaven, 
In his hard creed, no sins forgiven ; 
No faith, no hope, no bed-time prayer, 
No trust in God's protecting care. 

He watched at first half mockingly 

The child beside her mother's knee, 

With eyes down-drooped and folded hands, 

While o'er her shoulders golden strands 

Of hair fell down, and snow-white feet 

Peeped from her gown all fair and neat. 

(183) 



!84 NOW J LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

" And now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take : " 
So prayed the child, whose faith and love 
Wafted her simple words above. 

The proud man listened, and the years, 
So full of sin, doubt, griefs, and fears, 
Seemed blotted out, and he, once more 
A child, was kneeling on the floor 
Beside his mother, while he prayed 
The same prayer as this little maid. 

Dear childhood's prayer, so sweet, so strong ! 
With power to hold the heart so long, 
And melt the frost of years away, 
Until the scorner longed to pray ; 
And humbly ere he went to sleep, 
Besought the Lord his soul to keep. 



THE DYING SOLDIER AT SOUTH MOUN- 
TAIN. 



a N the Sunday before the battle of Antietam, 



o 



the battle of South Mountain was fought, and 
during the most of that awful day I witnessed some of 
the saddest scenes of my army life. 

It was my first experience under artillery fire, and I 
was very nervous and excited, yet many of the in- 
cidents remain vividly impressed upon my memory, 
clear and distinct after the lapse of thirty years. 

On Monday morning, my Company, acting as body- 
guard to Gen. AMBROSE E. Burnside, passed over the 
mountain on the way to Antietam. When we reached 
the summit some time was spent viewing the battle- 
field, which presented a terrible picture of the destruc- 
tion of human life, and the sufferings of the dying and 
the dead, lying in winnows, covering all the open 
ground. 

In one corner and on the brow of the mountain, 

stood a log-cabin, with an old broken door and one 

(185) 



1 86 NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

window. Into this wretched refuge more than twenty 
of the wounded, representing both the Blue and the 
Gray, had been taken for shelter and treatment. I 
passed among the wounded, giving them to drink from 
my canteen. Under the impression that I had attended 
to all the sufferers, I was about to pass out and away, 
when I heard a faint voice calling me in the name of 
G()D for something to quench the thirst that was con- 
suming him. The voice was from behind the open 
door, and the gloom gave no token of the presence of 
the sufferer. But a match was lighted, and revealed 
the helpless and dying soldier. 

A young man, clad in Confederate gray, pulled an 
old army blanket from his side, and revealed an awful 
wound made by a shell, which had torn away the most 
of his hip-bone. After quenching his thirst, I asked 
him who he was, and where he came from. His name, 
if it was given, is forgotten ; he said he was the young- 
est of five boys, all of whom had been killed in battle, 
and that his mother, in her devotion to the Confederate 
cause, had insisted upon his going into the army also. 
His home was at Paducah. 

I saw that death was swiftly coming, even as I was 
talking with him. As I was turning away, he suddenly 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. j 87 

said in a pitiful tone, " Can't you say a word to God 
for me? Pray — do pray." I was not a praying man 
then, but I felt a deep sympathy for the last son of a 
mother bereaved of all her heroic children, and all that 
I could do was to ask the Heavenly Father to bless him 
in the precious words : 

" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep." 

His fainting whispers followed me as I spoke, but 
before I had ended the prayer his spirit had passed 
away to answer the roll-call at the gateway of the 
eternal. 



"NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP." 

THE fire upon the hearth is low, 
And there is stillness everywhere; 
Like troubled spirits, here and there, 
The firelight shadows fluttering go. 
And as the shadows round me creep, 
A childish treble breaks the gloom, 
And softly from the further room 
Comes : " Now I lay me down to sleep." 

And, somehow, with that little prayer 
And that sweet treble in my ears, 
My thought goes back to distant years 

And lingers with a dear one there ; 

And as I hear the child's amen, 

My mother's faith comes back to me, 
Crouched at her side I seem to be, 

And mother holds my hands again. 

Oh ! for an hour in that dear place ! 
Oh ! for the peace of that dear time ! 
Oh ! for that childish trust sublime ! 

Oh ! for a glimpse of mother's face ! 

(188) 



NOW 1 LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 

Yet, as the shadows round me creep, 
I do not seem to be alone — 
Sweet magic of that treble tone — 

And " Now I lay me down to sleep." 



189 



THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER. 

aLL the resources of literature seem to have been 
exhausted in the effort to discover the origin, 
and if possible the name of the author of the Children's 
Prayer, but it has hitherto been in vain. As a contri- 
bution to the history specially relating to it, the com- 
piler gleans from a critical and elaborate history of the 
New ENGLAND PRIMER, and of earlier Primers in 
England, the following links in the chain of incident 
and interest, relative to the various editions published 
under the supervision of different revisers and critics 
from 1691 to the latest edition in use to the close of 
the first half of the present century. 

" The New England Primer and its Predeces- 
sors/' is the title of a series of articles by J. Hammond 
TURNBULL, LL.D., published in the Sunday-School 
Times, April 29 and May 6, 1882, and from which the 
following passages are collated : 

" It is a small subject concerning which I am asked to 

write for the Sunday-School Times ; a very small subject 
(190) 



NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP, \^i 

— a subject which in fact is, or used to be, only about 
three inches square. Yet, small as are its dimensions, 
it is something that has for a century and a half at 
least, exerted no small influence in the creed, the 
morals, and the institutions of New England ; for five 
or six generations it was an inmate of every Christian 
household, it was studied in every school, and its teach- 
ings, received in earliest childhood, remained as familiar 
truths when the failing memory of age had let go all 
else but the Bible. I am asked to write of the New 
England Primer, which used sometimes to be irreverent- 
ly called the ' Little Bible of New England! " 

The first published mention of the Primer now known 
was by an advertisement in the pages of an Almanac. 
In 1691, Benjamin Harris, a printer and bookseller in 
Boston, advertised as " in the press and suddenly to be 
extant, a second impression of the New England Primer, 
enlarged, to which is added more Directions for Spell- 
ing; the Prayer of King Edward the Sixth, and verses 
made by Mr. ROGERS, the martyr, left as a legacy to his 
children/' " No copy of this Primer is known to be 
extant." 

Having described several editions of the Primer, and 



192 



NO W I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 



the changes made in them by the respective compilers 
and publishers, Dr. Turnbull mentions among other 
similar lessons for children the following : 

" Have communion with few, 
Be intimate with One, 
Deal justly by all, 
Speak evil of none. ,, 

Another of these short verses every child did learn 
from his mother, if not from his Primer — the prayer at 
lying down, — more familiar to English-speaking Protest- 
ants than any other — the Lord's Prayer only ex- 
cepted. Lisped in infancy ; breathed with closed lips 
possibly in middle age ; reaching beyond and above all 
distinctions of creeds and differences of doctrines — its 
every syllable hallowed by early associations — that 
loving prayer has ascended to God from the hearts of 
"a great multitude which no man can number" : 

" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take." 

The first announcement of the New England Primer 
is contained in an advertisement on the title-page of an 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. T g$ 

Almanac, for the year 1691, issued by a Boston printer, 
and preserved in the Library of the Massachusetts 
Historical Society, Boston, which reads as follows : 

AN 

ALMANACK 

Containing an Account of the Celestial Motions, Aspects, 

&c. For the Year of the Christian 

Empire, 1691. 



By Henry Newman, Philomath, 



Printed by R. Pierce for Benjamin Harris at the 
London Coffee House in Boston, 1691. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

There is now in the Press, and will suddenly be ex- 
tant a Second Impression of the New England Primer 
enlarged, to which is added, More Directions for Spell- 
ing ; the Prayer of K. Edward the 6th, and Verses 
made by Mr. Rogers the Martyr, left as a Legacy to his 
Children. 

Sold by Benjamin Harris, at the London Coffee 
House in Boston. 

Note. — No copy of this edition is now known to 
be in existence. 



194 NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP, 

The copy of the New England Primer bearing the 
earliest date now known, is in the Lenox Library, 
New York, published by S. Kneeland and T. Green, 
1727. 

The Children's Prayer does not appear in this edition. 

The copy bearing the next earliest date now known is 
in the library of a gentleman in New York City, and 
bearing the imprint of M. Fleet, Boston, 1738, and 
contains the Children's Prayer, as follows : 

tl Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take." 



An edition published by S. Adams, Boston, about 
1762, gives a change in the reading, in the first line, 
and the prayer reads as follows : 

" Now I lay me down to take my sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take." 



NOW I LAY ME DO WN TO SLEEP. 195 

I lay me down to take my sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take. 
[Copy without title-page or date.] 



Now I lay me down to sleep, 

I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep ; 

If I should die before I wake, 

I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take. 



Now I lay down to take my sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take. 



Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take, 

And this I ask for Jesus' sake. — Amen. 



The name of the author of the Children's Prayer is 
unknown to earthly fame — but his work will bloom in 
the unclouded immortality of a world where " we 
shall know as we are known. " 



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